"Better Days"

Posted on Tue Feb 14th, 2023 @ 6:11am by Lieutenant Tate Sullivan Ph.D.
Edited on on Tue Feb 14th, 2023 @ 6:18am

Mission: MISSION 0 - History Speaks
Location: Ship's Primary School Classroom
Timeline: One Year Ago
1363 words - 2.7 OF Standard Post Measure

In the chaos the crew of the USS Elysium were facing now, they would be forgiven if they were hard-pressed to remember anything about life aboard the large vessel except for scrambling to save their own lives. Still, whatever the severely damaged ship was to them now, there was a time not so long ago when the very mix of metals, cables, and Jeffries tubes meant more than those tangible things. Things like family, community, purpose, and camaraderie.
In the present, Tate’s mind was hyper focused on getting to the Shuttle Bay with Myne and Octavia and saving all of their lives, but her heart was focused on better days.

***
Tate had looked forward to this all day. Her smile as she made her way to her destination was just a bit brighter than usual. She carried her box of supplies with one hand and passers-by with the other. Most didn’t bother to look at what she carried with her, understandably focused on their own tasks, but if they had inquired or looked inside, Sullivan would’ve proudly showed them she carried every possible art supply one could imagine, including brands, markers, glitter, glue, and of course, construction paper of all the right hues, including the all important reds and pinks.


Today, Tate would be visiting all of the classrooms aboard ship and helping the children make Valentine’s Day cards in advance of their official Valentine’s Day party.

Of course, Valentine’s Day was just one of thousands of holidays the children of the diverse universe could’ve chosen to celebrate. In fact, every year a certain number of holidays were randomly selected so they could get enough of a cultural education without having a party every day. Tate didn’t have much time to oversee the education programs aboard ship, but counseling

department worked closely with the school to make sure the children work coping well with life aboard a starship and learning as much as they could.
It was also no secret Tate loved children and took every opportunity she had to nurture them within the bounds of her profession. Sullivan adored children and was a nurturer at heart, but it was also no secret she sometimes struggled to find the boundary between appropriate professional distance and maintaining the loving and sincere attachment to the community that was the Elysium. Helping out in the classroom was both an opportunity to do what she loved and fulfill what she saw as a central obligation as Assistant Chief Counselor.

When Valentine’s Day had been chosen, Tate had volunteered to learn about the holiday’s origins, or at least its suspected origins, and share age-appropriate information and rituals with the class. Sullivan didn’t have any particular affinity for the occasion, having only celebrated it once she was adopted, but as an adult and a counselor, she could appreciate it was an opportunity to express feelings of affection, platonic or otherwise, to those one felt bonded. The Elysium’s children would benefit emotionally from any opportunity to strengthen such bonds, and Tate was only too happy to spoil them while they did it.

Walking down the row of desks, Tate took the opportunity to admire each child’s unique creations as she recounted them with what she had learned about the origins of Valentine’s Day.

The key was not to talk down to them, but also not to forget they were still kids. It was well known that children raised aboard starships often matured much faster than their peers, in part because they were often raised with other children from cultures much different from their own, and in part because they often had to face dangers other children did not.

There were pros and cons to being raised on a starship, and Tate was determined to find the right balance between learning and fun. Hence, the construction paper and the glitter alongside the lecture.

“St. Valentine’s Day is celebrated all over Earth, including the United States, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, France, and Australia,” Tate began. “No one knows exactly who St. Valentine was, as the Catholic Church recognizes at least three different saints with similar sounding names. Some believe Valentine was a priest who continued to perform marriage ceremonies for young soldiers, in defiance of the Roman Emperor Claudius the second. History suggests the Emperor had forbidden soldiers to marry because he believed single men made better soldiers and Valentine agreed to perform marriages in secret. Other historians believe St. Valentine was someone who helped Christians escape Roman prisons. Some people believe the tradition of sending cards to loved ones originated when Valentine, imprisoned by Emperor Claudius, fell in love with his jailer's daughter. Reportedly, his letters were thought to be signed 'from your Valentine'."

*So far so good,* Tate thought to herself, attempting to read the expressions on the children’s faces as they listen and colored. Mature as they may have been, even kids could only take so much love talk.

Tate continued, “While some believe Valentine's Day is celebrated in the middle of February to memorialize and commemorate St. Valentine's death or burial, others believe the Christian church decided to place St. Valentine's feast day in the middle of February as a way to change the meaning of, or make other people ignore, the pagan celebration of Lupercalia. Lupercalia was celebrated on February 15 and was a festival meant to promote fertility and dedicated to the Roman god of agriculture, Faunus, as well as to celebrate the founders of ancient Rome, Remus and Romulus."

Pausing in anticipation, Tate noted her last word was enough to get some children to look up from their desks in confusion and surprise. "Yes, this is a different Romulus than the one you are most familiar with."

Satisfied with that explanation for now, she watched as all the children returned to their art projects. Tate took the opportunity to review her notes and debated whether she wanted to add any more information about Lupercalia, ultimately deciding that discussion of sacrificing goats and lightly touching women with their hides dipped in blood to promote fertility, was a little too much, even for the mature elementary school kids and older adolescents she now faced.

Instead, she asked, “Does anyone have any questions?”
To her surprise, a young Bajoran girl of about eight years old raised her hand and asked, “Who is Cupid?” For emphasis, she pointed to a decoration hanging in the classroom of a typical cherub with a bow and arrow.

Tate smiled. Thankfully, this had been a question she had prepared for. “"Even though Cupid is depicted as a cherub with a bow and arrow, Cupid is believed to actually refer to the Roman god Cupid or the Greek God of love, Eros. According to the Greek poets, Eros was handsome and immortal. It is said that he played with the emotions of gods and men by shooting them with golden arrows to either create feelings of love or to create feelings of dislike. Cards, like the ones you guys are making for your classmates today, began to be exchanged in the middle of the 18th century. People of all social classes exchanged cards as a way to express their feelings of affection and friendship."

Take paused, then asked, "Does anyone have any other questions?"

This time, a young boy, somewhat younger than the Bajoran girl, raised his hand and asked, "My mom says that when two people really love each other, they show their love in a special private way when they're in their beds. What does that mean?"

Sullivan, to her credit, managed to keep a neutral pleasant expression on her face, a testament to her years of experience providing therapy to others. Before she could answer, out of the corner of her eye she saw a half-dozen hands shoot up in the air. "No doubt, they all had their own answers and information to share, and given the diversity within the classroom, she could only imagine what sort of explanations would be provided.

She answered the best way she could think of. "Who's ready for candy?"