Teacher Who Was Stabbed Faces a Life Now ‘Totally Out of Whack’

It was Thursday afternoon, and in earlier days Cynthia Edwards would have been in school. Instead, she was at home, digging holes in the desert sand to plant flowers with names she didn’t know but whose bright colors and cheering influence she has come to depend on.

Since she was stabbed in the right shoulder by one of her ninth-grade students at Olive Vista Junior High School last year, Edwards hasn’t returned to teaching. For a woman used to taking charge of her life and not prone to tears, she said the stabbing has knocked her life “totally out of whack.”

“I have always been a person who had direction,” said Edwards, 39, from her Palmdale home. “I had goals, I knew pretty much how I was going to get there. Now I have to wait for the doctors to release me, for the district to find me a job.”

That stabbing spurred lawmakers last year to approve a law requiring school districts to notify teachers of students with violent pasts. Edwards was unaware that her young attacker had been transferred twice for disciplinary reasons.

Edwards swears she will never teach junior high again and does not feel ready to confront students.

When she thinks of the 15-year-old boy who stabbed her, she said, “I feel like taking that kid by the neck and . . . “ Her hands seize an imaginary throat and she makes a “krrr” sound.

For 13 months, Edwards has been trying to get over the anger and bitterness. Living by herself in an isolated Palmdale neighborhood, she often felt alone and cried without anyone to comfort her.

Edwards planted red, yellow and purple flowers to brighten her life. When she felt herself sinking into a depression, she would go to a Palmdale shopping center to people-watch and window shop. Once she bought a vividly colored flower-print dress because she reasoned it would lift her spirits, she said.

At other times, Edwards would sit on a white lawn chair in the back patio, reading Ebony and Redbook magazines, soaking in the peaceful view of the desert and the Saddle Back Butte. Outside, where only the birds and the occasional barking of a dog could be heard, the quiet soothed her nerves. And when memories ripped the calm, she’d get up and water her young peach tree--using her one good arm. It was one of the few gardening tasks she could accomplish after the attack.

Last August, Edwards began taking piano and algebra classes at a local college. She drove her “play mothers”--older women who befriended her at church--to the store or nursing homes for visits. On her own, she learned how to knit and crochet, making afghans for her church.

“I’m learning to do a whole lot of things I didn’t know how to do before, had no idea how to do and didn’t care how to do,” she said.

Even in the past two months, her mood has improved, Edwards said. She now thinks about returning to work, perhaps as an instructor in adult education, where she wouldn’t have to deal with disruptive students.

“I know I have to go to work eventually,” she said. “But when and what will I be doing? It just leaves you in limbo. I’m impatient to know which way my life is going.”