The judge cancelled the restraining order setting into motion a chain of events…

I walked into my classroom on a September morning to meet my class for the first time.  I looked around the room of faces, hands holding pencils, open notebooks and staring eyes.  A chain of events was set into motion…

One in a hundred students would stand out in some inexplicable way.  You saw something in that person.  You stop looking at test scores and begin to see a personality. You listen to them, become friends with them. You let them tell their secrets, their fears and you laugh with them they are happy.  And, you comfort them when they cry.

You cared about them and you thought about their future.  They were yours for only ten months.  Then they moved on.  But you stayed friends with a few.  You followed their life as they became adults.  The best is all you can hope for them.

As the years pass, you think of fewer and fewer.  Your memory begins to fail you when you try to come up with a name or a an anecdote.

I recently received news that one of my former students, one whose artistic potential I could see very early…had come to a tragic end to her life.

She had become a teacher…a very good one, I’m told.  That one question, “I wonder what her life was like”, is now answered.

I’m too sad to cry right now.  I can only hope that she thought of me often like I thought of her.

I know the pebbles of encouragement she tossed as a teacher will have very long-lasting ripples.  Little circular waves that will go on for a very, very long time.

I was a single link in the chain of events of her life.  But, by her actions, deeds and love for family and students the chain will go on and on and on…