Teachers

Teachers who affected your life:

Miss Walker.  My curly haired 3^rd grade teacher.  She was young and spirited.  She loved Miss Piggy and talking French.  She was the first one to identify that I was smart, that I had something special.  She got a few of us a special French tutor just because she thought it would be fun.  She gave me creative writing prompts when I was bored in class. 

SHE GAVE ME CREATIVE WRITING PROMPTS when I was bored in class. 

Miss Brown.  She was frustrated and cold.  Because I was smart, she felt demeaned and without use.  What good is a teacher to a student who already knows?  She found out my weakness, and exposed it in front of the entire class.  Tearing open my wound, letting it bleed and fester for all to watch, point and giggle at my discomfort. 

SHE SCARRED ME.

Mr. McCreven.  Taught me it was ok to ask why.  Sometimes he had the answers.  Sometimes he didn’t.  And that was ok too.

Miss Suraci.  Taught me that art is not just paints, pastels, or clay.  Taught me that a teacher can also be a friend, a protector, and a teacher should allow you to grow and learn at their own speed, sometimes on their own path.

THEY HELPED ME GROW.

  

Does it make you sad?

“Does talking about your dead loved ones make you sad?” 

“No.”  said her father, “Sad isn’t the right word for it anymore.”  He explained, “there are many stages of grief.  Many emotions you go through.  You feel different things at different times.  But right now, it doesn’t make me sad.  I like talking about them because we are talking about happy times.  We are remembering happy fun times with them, and it makes my heart feel good.” 

“Do you miss them?”

“Yes I miss them.  I miss talking to them, and having them part of my life.  But its not so sad anymore.” 

I wanted to disagree.  It is sad.  Its sad that they didn’t stick around to see what an awesome mom I am, dad he is or what an awesome daughter we have.  (Don’t feed me the line, that they “know”.  Knowing is different than seeing, and experiencing.  I KNOW I like Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, that’s entirely different than EATING Ben & Jerry’s ice cream!) .  They didn’t get to read my blog or books, or even know that I started writing again.   They didn’t meet me – or Ed.  Or attend our wedding. (referring to grandparents here).   They didn’t get to nod in approval or gush about how perfect we are together.  They didn’t get to see us make the good decisions or even the bad decisions.  They didn’t get to enjoy the fact that we finally figured out who are true friends are, and are still making them!  And that is sad.  Selfish.  And sad.

Some of the people we’ve lost have been gone a long time, and some just a little time.  Her Dad made it sound like its all the same in the end.  That eventually you move on, and everything becomes a happy memory.  That’s not always true.  But that is ok.  You will learn from it.  You will grow from it.  And it will be ok.   

(I agree whole-heartedly that talking about them was not the part that made you sad.  Just the reality of it)    

What Were You Wearing?

Let me tell you a little story:

There was this park that pretty much everyone we knew who walked to school, to the high school, would cut through.  There wasn't exactly a proper path from the park to the school, but generations of students cutting through the park had worn down a pretty clear trail to follow.  It would bring you out right next to the ice rink, cutting out a good 15 minutes of the walk.  

When I was in high school, I was part of those usual feet that blazened that path.  Usually with a friend or two.  Junior year, however, a scandal had erupted.  A man started approaching girls while they walked through the park.  He propositioned them.  He grabbed them.  He tried to touch them in places that he shouldn’t.  We were warned, “Do not cut through the park.”  We would walk the long way around.  Staying to the actual sidewalks, not the twisting forest hidden path of the park.  But every day we saw police cars pulling in and out of the park’s entrances.  Patrolling the area for the culprit.  

I had gotten into a fight with my best friend.  She was no longer talking to me.  And I was left to walking to school by myself.  I had seen those police cars in the park.  That was good, right?  Police presence meant it was safe.  So I cut through the park.  And I cut through that park every day.  And nothing happened.  

a different kind of Pride

This may not be my most eloquent entry.  I am writing it spontaneously with a lot of emotion oozing from the words – all that emotion doesn’t come out eloquent sometimes.  I apologize.   A little.  #sorryNotsorry

Had a sweet conversation with my darling daughter this morning, so much so that I need to get it down “on paper” before the feelings fade, and it is less than a memory. 

I was telling her the story about how My uncle Eddie gave me the 45 of David Bowie’s Fame (not to mention I had to explain to her what a 45 was!!).  I described him as a cool uncle, very young and spirited.  I’m not even sure if that is accurate, because he died when I was 8.  But that is how I remember him.  She asks if he was alive now, would she like him; would he like her.  And as per usual, she asked how he died.  She asks this every time we discuss death.  I think she is still trying to figure death out – what causes it, what to be worried about.  “Brain Tumor.”

 Her eyes stormed over and she asked, “You mean cancer?”  Cancer is very much the C word to her.  It kills people.  I tried to explain that if he lived today, that modern science and medicine probably would have been able to save him.  I’m not exactly positive that is true – but it is the story that I tell myself, and that I believe to be true.  I hear so many stories about people with Brain Tumors, and living.  So why not Uncle Eddie? 

She apologizes.  She apologizes for “making me talk about dead people.”  I smile.  “Well, there are a lot of dead people in my life to talk about, unfortunately.  But I don’t mind talking about them, Kadence.  I actually like to talk about them, it helps to keep them alive through my memories. “ 

She says something about them not really being dead because we keep them alive in our hearts.  A line she got somewhere, that she was fed by one of us.  Not that I don’t believe it, because I do.  It just sounds funny coming out of her mouth. 

Then comes the sweet part, “Know what?  I bet they would be so proud of you.”  Even as I write down her words, tears well up in my eyes.  My darling daughter, telling ME that my parents would be proud of me.  Woooof the air is taken from my lungs, “They would be proud that you are a good person, and you have made a great family.” 

I can’t think of a better compliment or notion or gift that she could ever give me.  The notion that She is proud of me.  The notion that she believes that my dead parents would be proud of me, and that I am a good person.  Yes – I know I am a good person.  And I know my parents would be proud of me.  But more so, its that SHE is proud of me.  The thought that she, my little 10 year old flighty ball of spitfire, thinks about my losses.  Really our losses – but she thinks about me as a person, and about MY losses and how they affect me.  And she thought enough about it to say it outloud, to put it into words.  Words that touched my soul.  And I am crying as I write this – because she is growing into such a sweet loving little lady (even though you might think she would kick your butt, the bruising Karate Champion that she is).  And of course I am proud of her.  Proud of who she is and who she is becoming. 

And I don’t think it is all our doing.  You might say, of course she is becoming a good person, a loving person – because that is how you are bringing her up.  BUT, I think it is also just WHO she is.  And we are just lucky to be present in her life to bask in it. 

Happy Mother’s Day to me!