Keeping the Lights On: Supporting Communities Through Sudden Departures

Time goes by, time brings changes, you changed too
Nothing comes that you can't handle, so on you go
You never see it coming when the world caves in on you
On your town, nothing you can do
Main street isn't main street anymore
Lights don't shine as brightly as they shone before
To tell the truth, lights don't shine at all
In our town
                                         - Our Town, lyrics by Randy Newman

For many of us who live outside the country of our passports, “our town” has become the whole world. And, across that world, already this year, the warm lights in the homes of many friends and colleagues, parents and children, diplomats and humanitarian workers and federal employees, “don’t shine as brightly as they shone before.” 

There are many circumstances around the world that cause forced reductions, firings, administrative leaves, and fork in the road dilemmas that create instant Leavers and Stayers in our communities. Each person has their own story of amazing contribution and expertise and, now, of various kinds of shock, loss, indignity and uncertainty that trail like space junk off the back of their lives. For many onlookers, children included, questions surface: Is this really happening to us? Why is this happening? Are we next? What do we do now?

Often with little notice, families and lone workers in cities and remote villages scramble to pack and plan, to catch hastily booked flights to uncertain futures. They fly away from the places and the work they love and from people who know their worth. Eligible Family Members (EFMs) and other partners, many of whom work as teachers and professionals in international schools, leave their classes and colleagues midstream. Children leaving their friends, plans for pets and school transcripts, almost completed Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate diploma courses, household staff, possessions, and houseplants, vehicles, and friendships, tickets, and travel all flood the zone. But this is not a flood of water; brains are on fire. It’s hot, and it’s a LOT. 

For the larger international school and expat community, many are asking: How do we acknowledge and mark moments like these, and how do we speak to them with integrity? How do we enter the grief of others with compassion and support and a sense of common humanity? How do we care for children? How do stories of feeling erased have the best chance of becoming stories of wellbeing? These are questions worth asking and pondering among us.

Here are a few other things to consider. Take them to heart, especially if you want to support children impacted by loss. When your work, your identity, or your people in the world feel like they are disappearing overnight, the most secure way to offer shelter to children is to start by securing your own base, by putting your own oxygen mask on first.  

Find Your Home Team

“Everybody has a home team…These are your people, your middle-of-the-night, no-matter-what people.” 
                                         -Bittersweet, Shauna Niequist

For Leavers: Community and connection is your sane place in a scrambled world. Narrow your focus. Who are the three to five people who might steady you in this transition right now? Whose voices do you trust? Figure out who your Home Team is, reach out to them. Gather them close, virtually or otherwise. Tell them what you’re going through. Hear yourself think. Start a WhatsApp channel or another easy way to send a distress call. Start with family, and work your way out. Think of people who knew you before the crisis, know you in the crisis, and who you’ll have an ongoing relationship with after the crisis. 

For Stayers: If you can’t think of who your Home Team is, gather one now. We all need one, and waiting for a greater crisis to find your steady voices is a risk we can all avoid. 

Colleague to Colleague: If you’ve just lost or will lose one of your closest people out there, the hurt is real. Whether it’s your travel buddy, field or office colleague, or new best friend, we all know the good ones don’t walk in the door every day. When they go, we feel it. When the time is right, find a way of honoring them where you are and where they are. Put them into words and pictures. Plan a virtual tribute. Call them when the gang’s together to let them know they’re missed.  

Students and Families: Also, pay attention to who is part of the Home Team for students and families who are leaving or have left. Invite student Leavers to bring their closest friend or two with them to a transition meeting with a counselor or teacher before they leave. Let them see and be a part of the transition care you offer to others and them, too.

         Take Your Time, Even as Time Runs Out

“Time can be whatever we need it to be. We have all the time in the world.” 

For Stayers: Be unhurried. Communicate to others that you have time to listen and time for them. Seeing and staying (even for a couple more minutes than expected) helps put out fires in the brains of adults and children in crisis. It supports them to make better decisions and releases them to respond instead of reacting through their last days in your school, office, or city. “I have time for you.” “We have time for this.” “What else matters to you right now?” “Let’s take a minute and do this together.” And, take time for yourself to catch up to your own story. If people you know are leaving, you’re going through transition too. 

For Leavers: Do what you can and be patient with the “mop up.” Transition takes time and is non-linear at the best of times. You might draft a hasty thank you and goodbye on the school social media page. Drop off a plant without a note on a friend’s porch. All the pieces won’t be sorted right now. They are up in the air. At some point down the road, they’ll fall into place. But also be aware, as Doug Ota says, that “Grief is cumulative.” It adds up when it’s not given attention. So, set an intention to express your gratitude and your goodbyes when you can. Build your RAFT (through reconciliation, affirmation, farewell, and thinking destination). You want to transition with the least clutter, noise and regret possible, but maybe only by circling back if you skip a piece or aren’t ready for one yet. Ultimately, the less cluttered your ending is, the less cluttered your beginning will be. Keep working at it, even after you leave. Doing this RAFT work and other exercises designed for you in the  Safe Passage Across Networks (SPAN) Crisis Support Toolkit will help support a more positive transition. 

Make Room for Feelings, Numbness, and Confusion (and discover what they’re telling you.)

“Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable.” -Fred Rogers

Feelings are not distractions; they are messengers. So is a lack of feeling. Emotions can even tell us what needs to happen first, or next, or not yet. Like passing weather, when they wash over us fully, emotions can pass through us in 90 seconds to flush out what needs flushing. If we hold them back, they can churn like a low pressure system that broods overhead and just won’t move on. 

Maybe you’re euphoric. Maybe you’re numb. Maybe you’re confused. Why wouldn’t you be? It’s a time when contradictions and paradoxes and truths on many sides collide with incomplete arguments that present as fact. You’re allowed to be ecstatic or not to feel anything at all. 

For Stayers and Leavers: Karla McLaren, author of The Language of Emotions and a system called Dynamic Emotional Integration, has mapped helpful questions to a whole range of human emotions. These help us get curious about the messages behind what we’re feeling. For example, the overwhelm of a dozen urgent and unfinished things can cause anxiety. But, the question, “What truly needs to be done?” can cut through this anxiety by accelerating clarity. Here’s a sample of six common emotions that often arise in both crisis and everyday situations, with two accompanying questions for each. 

• Anger: What do I value? What must be protected and restored?
• Anxiety: What truly needs to be done?’ ‘What brought this feeling forward?
• Grief: What must be mourned? How do I honor what was lost?
• Sadness: What must be released? What must be rejuvenated?
• Shame and Guilt: Whose ethics and values have been disrespected? What must be made right?
• Confusion and Overwhelm (a time to avoid any optional decisions, by the way): How can I welcome not-knowing and not-doing? What is my intention?

Keeping the Home Fires Burning 

Home isn’t built in a day.

While the homes of our global friends might flicker a bit in communities across the planet and some might feel erased right now, we expats have a way of keeping the home fires burning for each other. We look forward to seeing our colleagues who have left their posts reappear with us in resilient communities across the globe. 

In the meantime, good resources and good people abound to support us in the quest. If you’re looking for complementary coaching to sort through your current situation, feel free to sign up here for three free coaching sessions organized by an experienced duo from the humanitarian sector. You are also invited to browse the Safe Passage Across Networks website, and to consider how a Schoolwide Transition Program can prepare you and your colleagues to keep the lights on when adversity hits.