Tears

I was just sad today.  An underlying sadness, and the tears were right at the surface all day.  The kids were good today, my lessons went well, but I just didn't feel much joy today.
First, I overheard something this morning and when I asked about it later, I found out more of the story.  A colleague's husband is leaving her.  They have children, and he is just being stupid.  He doesn't even want to visit his children, which is the part that kicks me every time I think about it.  I get it that people fall out of love with each other, but what happens when a parent does that to his children? It is just sad.
Then, I had this class of very good students, and there's that one kid.  You know the kind I mean--the hard-to-like little bugger.  At the end of class, I asked his teacher if she loved him; I needed some words of advice to help me love him.  And she said that she was working on loving him.  And I told her that I just needed something to love about him. 
She pulled me aside and said that he was a child of divorced parents and that the principal recently called CPS because the kid came in obviously upset and roughed up.  Turns out his mom beat the crap out of him that morning, pulling him by his hair across the room.  Nice. So I am going to try to love this kid a little more.