February. There’s ice everywhere from snow packed on the road, snow compressed on the sidewalks, early melts in the fields that have refrozen. I am walking to the post office that’s in the serve-all commercial building in the village center of Lipnica Wielka.

The building houses a large public (as in government-owned) store downstairs, a large hall for wedding celebrations upstairs, and the post office upstairs in the wing to the right. Below it — who knows? Like many public buildings in Poland in the 1990’s, there’s a lot of empty space. In my hand, a pile of letters to family and friends. As I begin up the outer steps, I meet the director the rehabilitation center at the top of the village, just under Babia Gora, the mountain that looks over the whole village.

It’s a center the Duchess of York has established for children recovering from the chemicals and radiation used to treat cancer. I’ve been going up to spend time with the kids from time to time since the first weeks of my arrival. I always leave feeling depressed and heartened. Children have always been a joy to me, but so many withered children, boys with no hair, girls covering their bald heads with kerchiefs, leave me emotionally drained.

Halina is one of the residents, a girl of seventeen who is trying to complete her first year of high school in Lipnica. She’s tried twice before, but her cancer and its treatment have made it impossible. She sits in my first-year class, clearly older, clearly more mature than the other students, and she often looks at me with an expression that seems to say, “You have no idea what you’re doing, do you?” A first year teacher, I really don’t.

Just before Christmas break, Halina disappeared. When I meet the director of the center, we make small talk for a few moments before he abruptly tells me, “Halina died.”

I stand there for a moment, silent. What do I say? What can I say? Everything feels so trite, so silly, so empty.