As a teacher, you never know which of your students are going to be the ones you stay in touch with. One of my biggest, and most wonderful, surprises was reconnecting with "Chantal" over many years.
Chantal was a very intelligent, very angry child, and she had reason to be angry. I won't go into her background in detail here, but her mother was not present and her father was elderly when she was born, among other issues. Chantal pretty much raised herself.
She was one of those students who you would like to see succeed, but you're just not sure it will happen. I lost touch with her when I left the classroom, and wondered what had happened. Happily, she found my phone number when she was in high school and called me to let me know she had straight As, and I was thrilled.
We've kept in touch and seen each other off and on since then and I've gotten to hear about her jobs, her marriage, and her three, soon to be four children. We had lunch recently and I fell in love with her children.
I had met the two older ones before, when they were much younger, and I didn't think they'd remember but they ran up to me and hugged me, with one of them saying, "Ms. HARRIS! You were my mom's TEACHER!" Their mom is about 28 and probably seems like she was never in third grade, let alone with a still-living teacher!
They drew me pictures and asked me lots of questions, not listening to answers because they were so excited to tell me about their baby sister and the new baby on the way. They told me that they had been listening to "the multiplication songs." I had completely forgotten that when Chantal was in my class, I often played a CD I had with multiplication songs to help the kids learn their math facts. Chantal asked me for a copy of it when she had kids and apparently her kids have been listening to it for years, and could sing all the songs already.
The kids were respectful, polite, smart, and engaging, which brought me to tears when I thought about it later. Chantal didn't grow up with a family, not really. And somehow, she has been able to create this family for herself, in a very healthy way.
When we were leaving, the kids asked if I could be their teacher. Then they started arguing happily about what I should be to them. Could they adopt me as their grandma? An auntie? They settled on cousin and asked me to come to their house soon.
This here, this lunch... if nothing else made my years of teaching worthwhile, this would have. It was absolutely beautiful.
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