I taught special ed for high school students. Some pretty rough cases. Everyone who was at my school was there because they had been through the system, from special classes to special programs. Most were juvenile offenders in the legal system, many lived in group homes. It wasn't easy, but I was able to make a connection with those kids, and I really did care for all of them.

Except one. I'll call him "A" to protect his identity. He was an outlier in many ways. He was one of the few white kids int he school. The only from a middle class background. He was also the only one who had two parents. He was intelligent....and one o the nastiest pieces of work there. He knew how to disrupt a class like nothing I had ever seen. He would identify the weakness of other kids, and prey on them...sending them into a rage just for entertainment. If there was a fight in the room, "A" was almost always there...smiling and enjoying the chaos.

That's background on the kid.

One day he found out that I had a daughter who died. He must have overheard some teachers gossiping, or caught wind of me fundraising for SMA awareness.

Well, once he found that out, he finally cracked my weakness. I'm a pretty easy going guy. Not much can rattle me. I never appear angry. Out of all my relationships, I don't think I've raised my voice more than a handful of times over thirty years.

"A" nearly pushed me over. The first day he had snuck into class before me and put pictures of dead babies over my desk. This continued until he was caught. He was punsihed for it, but he didn't care. He wanted to make the person snap, and he knew the limits of punishment. It was a fair exchange.

For the rest of the year, he wouldn't let a class go without bringing my daughter up at least once. "Your daughter is lucky she's dead so she didn't have to have a shitty dad" or "I bet you killed her and just claimed it was a disease".

I told myself that I could deal with it.....but it was like Chinese water torture. Drip. Drip. Drip. Every day. I hated going to school to do my job. Finally one day I broke.

Can't even recall the breaking point, but when it happened, I had to get out of there. Trying my best to remain calm and not throw "A" out the window, I called another teacher in, left the building and just had a mental breakdown in my Jeep. Didn't go back in the next day.

Hell, there isn't a fight int he world I ever walked away from. Not in my character. In the battle of resolve with this kid? I lost and chickened out.

Rest of the year we adjusted the schedule so he wouldn't be in the same room with me.

Next year, I left teaching.

I keep reading the paper wondering if "A" will show up. It's been years. It's just a matter of time.