February 20, 2007

• A Special Birthday

    Some of you who have been reading me for awhile may remember this entry.

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   Today would be Mrs. Miller's birthday. She was one of the most influential people in my life. She was my first grade teacher,  but we kept in contact until her death in the early 1990's.

     In the classroom she was strict, but not rigid.This was in the mid-1960's when the turmoil from the outside world was beginning to affect the neighborhood, but there was an almost Buddhist stillness surrounding the 30 or so students as we learned. She taught me the advanced techniques of reading, a skill I shall always be grateful for. Short & stout, with hair that was snowy white even then, I can still picture her in a navy blue dress with a string of pearls. She not only had patience, but expectations of each of us, so that one wanted to do their best so as to prove her right.

     The summer after first grade Mrs. Miller sent me a postcard from the Smokey Mountains of 2 bear cubs. I wrote back to thank her & a correspondence was begun that lasted over 30 years. It must've been interesting to see my letters evolve from clumsy block letters through careful handwriting to the typed missives I sent almost monthly. There was one student from each year of her 40-some years of teaching that she kept in contact with, it was a wonderful coincidence.  If my mediums changed over the years, hers never did, it was always the straight, spacious printing that had adorned my lessons in elementary school. I would always smile when I saw an envelope with that distinctive, comforting handwriting. I have saved all of her letters, tied with ribbon.

     Her letters were full of the wonders of everyday; the birds & flowers in the garden of her apartment, things she & her husband saw on their travels, shops she frequented, poems she enjoyed. Over the decades, she encouraged me with my artistic pursuits, reading adventures & whatever I was most enthusiastic about at the time. She sent lovely gifts-exotic teas, Celtic items & always books. One that especially touched me was from that very same first grade classroom, a children's book about fawns called "Dash & Dart"that I had read twenty years earlier. I could never repay her generosity, but when she got unable to go out much, I would send her fruit baskets which surprised and pleased her.

      From her, I learned to see the beauty of everyday things & treasure the momentary joy they bring & try to express that in writing. Her acceptance & lack of judgement was an example to me, though I mostly fail to live up to it. I don't think I could ever have the patience she had in a roomful of noisy little kids. Never mind the encouragement & praise she lavished on all of her students. It was the mark of sterling character. A teacher in the wider sense of the word.

      It seems that my writing skill is not adequate in expressing a proper tribute to someone who had such a profound effect on me. I shall always be glad she was my teacher and then my friend. I miss her still.

    

  • 12:17 pm
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