Jane Stackpole
On the way to their cheerleading competition in Bucksport, the Ellsworth Middle School cheerleaders’ bus caught on fire.
“Mommy!’ Em’s voice crackled into my cell phone. “Our bus was on fire. There was smoke and it was crazy and everyone was coughing and – ”
I stared at my cell phone, trying to compute.“What?”
“Our bus was on fire.”
“Your what?”
“Our bus was on fire. Sparks were coming out the back and smoke was coming up and the floor was super hot.”
I think I possibly dropped the phone on the car floor, but I managed to recover and say, “Where are you now?”
“Waiting for another bus.”
“Are you safe?”
“Yep. Oh! Our bus is here. Are you coming? Hurry.”
“I am driving down the Bucksport Road now.”
“Well, be safe…”
Yep. Right. Me be safe.
It’s not easy being a mother. It’s definitely not being the mother of a cheerleader. Forget your preconceived notions of cheerleaders here. Em’s a straight-A kind of kid. She’s not really good at flouncing. She went on a tirade last year because she thought that one of the cheers was degrading to women.
Her coach, Jane Stackpole? She’s not the typical either. She didn’t get angry at Em. She listened. She agreed and got rid of the cheer.
Knowing that Jane Stackpole was there on the bus with those girls is one of the things that made me not go into FULL PARENTAL FRENZY mode as I drove those last 10 miles to Bucksport High School. I knew without a doubt that Jane Stackpole would do everything she could to keep those girls safe.
When girls like Emily go up to fly in the cheerleading stunts. Other girls are there to catch them, to hold them aloft, to cradle them with they twist back down.
I’ve watched Jane Stackpole hold her breath when the girls do those stunts.
When girls do their tumbling runs across the mat, Jane Stackpole looks like she’s doing silent prayers.
“I love these girls,” she told me one day when we were sitting in the gym bleachers during a basketball game. “It hurts me if they’re hurting.”
Jane teaches seventh grade. You know she feels that same way about her students as she does about her cheerleaders. You know that she cares about each and every one of them. You know she’s devoted.
That’s why I wasn’t a total wreck when the bus caught on fire on the way to Bucksport. It’s also why, a week later, I wasn’t a total spaz when the girls’ bus broke down AGAIN on the way back from a championship in Bangor. This time they were on the turnpike sitting on the tops of their seats because the floor was so hot.
There was one reason I wasn’t in MOMMY PANIC MODE: I knew Jane was there.
I knew she would do everything she could to keep them safe.
There’s a braveness in Jane Stackpole. It’s not easy to put your heart on the line over and over for all those middle school kids. It’s not always easy to watch them fall from stunts, watch them cry over second-place finishes. It’s not always easy, but she does it.
She’s been doing it for years.
All those girls on the Ellsworth Middle School team learn how to work together, get better toe-touches, do the stunts, the dances. Jane Stackpole teaches them that.
She teaches more than that, though.
She teaches them how to care. She teaches them to be unafraid in their caring, in their investment in other people’s sorrows and joys, in other people’s lives. That’s heroic. And that’s a lesson that they’ll have long after the cheers are over, and they’ve gotten off the bus.