to my daughter
January 30, 2016 § 3 Comments
This week you were missing last year’s teacher. You lamented the injustice of having moved so far from the possibility of impromptu visits. It was a rite of passage, returning each year, chasing old memories across abandoned classroom desks to find your place.
Teachers are masters of recognition, holding past students present with a quick smile and easy hug.
Maybe for just a day you wanted to walk old footsteps with new confidence, feel wiser and revisit familiar certainties. Perhaps you wanted to disappear in sentiment or find a reflection of self in another’s hello.
It could be you just wanted to know everyone is where you left them and that you still belong.
We all need to know that we matter. Go first. Hold a place for someone else.
Write a letter, send a picture. Keep those who are important to you close with intention.
Meanwhile, let’s dig up last year’s end-of-the-year gift. Remember it? A collage of words collected by your teacher and classmates, shaped into art and framed for importance. They chose words to describe you, to hold a place for you, even before they knew you were leaving.
We’re overdue to hang the image, but it isn’t too late to write your teacher a letter.
Love, Mom
scribblechic 
Ah, growing up, and the pains they bring Marie.
But with a very wise mom and dad, those journeys are softened on the curves, and even sometimes feel like being thrown off a cliff.
But they always provide a learning and a wisdom like no other to that lovely beating heart within 🙂
Great ‘letter’, I wish I had some of them…but then I would have missed being pushed off my cliff 🙂
Oh, the kids don’t read the letters, they get pieces of insight and subtle encouragements to help them find their way. The letters are for a day down the road when they need mothering and I’m not there. Breadcrumbs to nurture their hearts and minds for other challenges still to come. Love letters on hold.
Ah, now I understand Marie. I haven’t come across that before.
Still, a beautiful mother’s support though 🙂