Homemade treasures from my son’s amazing teacher
I’ve been sick and busy for the past week, and this is the longest I’ve gone in years without writing a blog post. It is hard not writing, and truthfully, not writing makes me feel anxious. Unfortunately though, not feeling well, wrapping up a school year for both me and my kids and doing all the prep work for camp was just enough to seal the deal for no morning time writing at all this week.
Through this extraordinarily busy time, however, there has been one blog post just burning a hole in me letting me know that it really needed to be written. So here goes…
On very rare occasions throughout your time on Earth you are blessed when someone comes into your life who is so amazing that they really must have been sent from heaven above. This is the case with my son’s angel teacher that he was so lucky to have for not one but TWO absolutely perfect years.
My son was in a multi-age 1st & 2nd grade class. For those of you who know my son, you will understand when I say that his behavior could probably use some improvement. Every year, you hope and pray with a kid who has some issues with attitude that they will be given a school teacher that is a good match. If I could dream up the perfect teacher, she or he would be like Mary Poppins – that perfect combination of kindness, fun, firmness and structure.
Well Mary Poppins we got – only better, because she was real. She had flaws and a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and a love of quilting and sewing that came out on holidays and the end of the year when she would make homemade gifts for all 26 of the kids in the class. She took time to mail home photographs and letters to each of these lucky “Whippersnappers” (as she called them) every single month. She just knows how to make everything so special, and my kid came out learning on top of all of that, too. She was simply magical, and boy am I forever indebted to her for the love and improvements she brought to our lives.
I made it a point to show up to the last hour of school this past week despite sickness and busy-ness, because how could I possibly not come on the last day of school feeling as appreciative as I have for two years? As I said before, it’s not every day that someone like this walks into your life, and I wasn’t about to miss that last moment.
You would expect a happy celebration in a classroom on the last day of school, but instead, there were tears – lots of them. Seeing those sweet 1st and 2nd graders just so sad to be losing their very special teacher got me started, too, and when I looked around at the other parents, I quickly learned I wasn’t the only one choked up. I’m even still getting misty as I’m writing about it, because it was just so emotional.
So, here I am feeling so eternally grateful that I was blessed with this angel for my child and for us in turn, as well and a little sad knowing that she will now need to focus her energies on her new whippersnappers next year, and that our time with her has come to an end. I know one thing for sure – we’ll never get a better teacher for our kids. We just have to hope that maybe at least one more time in their lives, there will be ones that are just as good.
My song of the day is from the Talking Heads. It is called “Thank You For sending Me an Angel,” because that is exactly how I feel. What’s interesting about the song, however, is that the title never appears in the lyrics. Instead it says:
I’ll walk in circles ’round you.
But first, I’ll walk around the world.
I’m walking ’round the world
I … you can.
But first, show me what you do.
Yep, dear teacher, we walk in circles around you, because you are the BEST! Thank you for a wonderful two years. xo
