Makayla Corbin: Fragile Yet Resilient

I am a teacher. In 15 years on the job, I have had over 2,000 7th graders come and go through my classroom. I'd like to be able to say that I can remember all of their faces and names, but I can't. Sure, many kids stand out, but many more have been forgotten in the sheer enormity of their numbers. And while the yearly onslaught has greyed my memory, two enduring qualities have lingered – fragility and resilience.

These two opposing qualities – representative in so many young people – described one former student in particular.

From the moment she entered the hallways of our building four school years ago, to the day she moved on to the high school three years later, Makayla Corbin was regarded as a sweet, kind and gentle girl.  Her smile was genuine and infectious, lighting up her entire face. And Makayla was a good friend to classmates. The kindness and loyalty she gave to others was returned to her tenfold.

One might define Makayla’s qualities – sweet, gentle, kind – the way we think of a feather blowing in the breeze - fragile. The feather is captive to where the wind takes it. The feather may be blown into places it doesn’t want to go, circumstances it doesn’t want to face, and yet the feather has no choice – it must go there.

Makayla’s life was not easy. Like the feather, she confronted circumstances she didn’t want to – that none of us should have to confront. But she had no choice. She endured long absences from her mother – serving overseas in the military – with grace and dignity.

During these absences, Makayla learned that fragility and resilience could co-exist within one person – herself. But Makayla could have made another choice, and few would have blamed her had she struggled emotionally and academically without her mother. Instead, she became that young person adults admire most – resilient in the face of adversity. Like the poem Invictus proclaims, she was undaunted, the master of her fate . . . a feather tacking into the wind.

Resilience is an undervalued personal trait these days – something even adults struggle with from time to time. What makes resilience in a young person even more impressive is the fact that the circumstances they rise above are usually never of their making. Poverty, abuse, neglect, divorce, an absent parent – these situations are not of a child’s doing. And yet every once in a great while a wonderful young girl like Makayla Corbin overcomes – and can see nothing but a bright, hopeful future lying before her.

The awful fragility of existence was laid bare last week when Makayla and her mother died tragically in a house fire in Osceola, Wisconsin. Fragility – both gentle and unbearable – is one of the defining qualities of humanity. One beautiful, the other mortal, competing for possession of our souls.

But it is Makayla’s resilience that will never be taken from her, or ever forgotten by those who knew her. Nothing – not even death – can wrestle this defining quality from her. And it is Makayla’s fragile gift of resilience – if we are wise enough to accept it – that will keep her alive in our memories.