Framed by the window, she watched Jackson Elementary put on its best face for the most important night of the year. Open House. Her heart wished she could return to be one of the flaming stars of the night.
Miss Teacher Girl.
Back then, student dreams were carefully held in her heart, next to her love of teaching. Yearnings for one more shot at those days made her eyes leak tears that dropped one by one, sprinkling her blouse like tiny raindrops.
Over her classroom years, Open House was always the ultimate explosion of art, writing, books, and pride.
Open House.
The best of nights she remembered as she sat just a window away while watching Jackson Elementary across the street.
Mrs. Wells.
Sometimes, even in her twilight years, she’d be out to dinner, blankly suffering through her loneliness in a venue different than her kitchen table, when a voice from the past would catch her off guard.
“Mrs. Wells? Mrs. WELLS???????? Is it really you?”
Embarrassment caught her every time because the person asking was a stranger she had known as well as their parents, at one time. Someone who held one-year-long spot in her heart with all the others. A former student. She would always pause and respond with a “Yes” as she waited. Sometimes she would know, as she scanned her mental year books, like taking attendance. It was always in the smile. Sometimes she’d give in, saying, “Help me with this, because the years have robbed my brain and you’ve changed a bit.”
She’d love her students until the day she died, which was much closer than all those yard duty days as children raced with their wide open arms to hug the teacher they loved the most in the whole world.
Today, the colors of a brand new springtime were bold. She watched as Sam, now gray and hurting from the long day, was making his way across the school yard. Everyone loved Sam, the janitor. She knew well, on this most important night, Sam would have been at it at least 12 hours by now, with never a gruff word. Teachers would have asked, pleaded, and demanded without a “Thank You”. “Sam, Could You..” “Sam, Right now.” “Sam.” “Sam.” “Sam.”. The man was a saint.
The memories hurt her heart in a cruel way, as she found herself needing to close her eyes, remembering back to one of the best nights of her life. Open House in the infancy of a new century. The most beautiful of nights, a celebration of the taming of a wild, little boy, and the gentling of a brittle, new teacher.
“Jimmy. My Jims.”
She wept as she recalled a beautiful yet sorrowful vignette of past, present, and future. She needed to replay this story for herself one more time, wondering if something so precious could’ve really occurred in a generic classroom over months and months.
“My Jims,” she thought, over and over.
If you could have only visited her innermost thoughts, in her very best story time voice it was this memory you’d have heard her tell. Yes. It had happened in that very new year, in a very new decade, now so long ago.
We met in first grade.
Madder than a hot hornet in a glass jar, that one. Small package of intensity. Rather like a molten shooting star. Something to be seen, but never touched. Streaking. Raging. White hot. He had so much reasons to rage in such a short life. My Jims. I’d watched him grow as he was assigned to teachers from Kinder to my 3rd Grade classroom door.
In those first few years, his fiery temper was the talk in the lunchroom. Overturned desks. Rantings. Raging’s. Temper turned outward, all the while, anger devoured him on the inside. Punishments came because he raged at himself so not even knowing why. Neither did anyone else. Tags. Detention. Estrangement from the others. Separation. Anger on top of anger for years as he grew up.
I asked for him, you know. I prayed he would come to me on an August class list. Year after year, anecdotal stories exploded as warnings. No sane teacher would willingly want this child disrupting her classroom . But, I wanted him. I saw through his exaggerated melodrama, to see a bright, bored, brilliant soul screaming for someone to notice. Raging for someone to demand he stop because there was something worth stopping for. I wanted that someone to be me. I waited for his years to add up to 3rd Grade.
With my new classroom roster in hand, his name RED and UNDERLINED, I found his cum-file filed attached with “year’s-gone” actions that were Un-acceptable. Un-tolerated. Un-understood. Yes. I had to agree. They were all that. Past offences, now expected behavior by everyone in the school. Except me. I filed them away unread.
We’d make a new file. He’d find his good. I wanted to know why he hurt. I wanted to be the one to help. The one to change his course, while helping him set a new one. I didn’t want to know his previous path. I wanted to be the one to draw the road map. He would come with me for the ride.
The first days were rocky. Constant detours. Turning out on muddy roads. Pit stops in the middle of no-where.
On one of the worst, we had been at odds all day. By mid-afternoon our differences escalated into a picture prior teachers had vividly painted for me time and again. Jimmy could take no more. After spitting verbal daggers at me through clenched teeth, his legs chose flight. Out the door and into the playground he flew, with 15 other students sitting in wide-eyed amazement. Controlled and with purpose, Jim’s and I struggled verbally, him like a Marlon on a reel. He took the line and ran with it, I reeled him back in with a call to his mother to report on his actions. He took the line and ran further. I tired him with demands of compliance. I finally won. In the safety of our classroom, he was back in his chair quietly working, respectfully spent. Never again to flare or flee. He’d returned to Room 20 of his own choosing. The road to goodness and light. He made the choice to avoid certain and known embankments and cliffs, a choice made in his heart. He told me.
He shared so many feelings with those tiger eyes that softened from steel to chocolate over the months we built our team. After that day, I let him drive sometimes, a tiring teacher as the year drove on. I didn’t know the direction he would like to journey. It turned out, he was a good driver. We almost never turned off anymore, unless there was something we both want to see. He read our map quite well. A solid compass guided his heart.
The days leading up to Open House were tension filled on my part. I wanted to race, breaking all speed limits to make our destination before parents arrived to visit Room 20 on April 21 at 6:30pm. Sometimes, it’s hard to remember there is a pace for every activity. A proper speed is needed, less you might lose young passengers clinging on the roof with their bare fingernails. Take the corners gently. Remember bathroom breaks. Be sure to look at the landscape. Encourage them. Love them. That’s tough when you have 16 tired passengers asking “How Much Longer, Mrs. Wells?”
The day before the big event, Jimmy came to me during recess with a question.
“Mrs. Wells? Are you sure you are coming tomorrow night?”
“Jims, I wouldn’t miss this for the world. It’s the most special of nights for a teacher, too. I’ve found it to be magical.”
He pondered this, as many of his past experiences had not held a magical quality. Often, his mom, exasperated and beyond humiliation, had chosen to stay at home in hiding.
“Mrs. Wells? If I dress up really nice for Open House and you dress up really nice, do you think we could dance?”
I was taken aback? In this day and age? Dance with a student? This student? This little boy that had been the source of so many discussions about proper behavior and good choices? My little friend? My co-driver on this year long journey of discovery? This student maligned and allowed destructive freedoms until he arrived to find safety with me?
I found myself smiling and telling him. “Of course!” as if it was the most natural question in the world.
The night arrived. I didn’t wear a dress, but I did wear black. As the children and parents came to “Oohh” and “Aahh”, I remembered that Open House was the most special night of the year, not only for them, but for me. In my mind, I was, again, in grade school, remembering my special nights. I was, again, a young single mom with my beloved sons, amazed at their accomplishments. I was, again, a middle-aged teacher on my very first Open House, and I was, again, the Grandmother wishing I could be in two places at once to see my oldest Grandson’s Open House unfolding across town at the very same hour.
As music softly played, the door opened, and there he was there with Brother and Mother. He had dumped the grubby boy clothes. There was someone else in his place. A little person lost between brat-hood and adolescence. His hair combed and him shining. Eyes sparkling. Graying, white, hand-me-down shirt with Dad’s tie around his neck. Tubbed and Scrubbed. But more than that, smiling from his soul through his chocolate eyes. Jimmy.
He came to my side, and quietly asked if I remembered.
I said I’d been waiting.
After listening to the music playing, he was momentarily troubled.
“I thought it would be violins.”
We’d make do with saxophones and the chatter of a busy room. Immediately, shyness overtook him and he said we would have to wait. I smiled and continued with the night.
Fifteen minutes later, the softest tap I felt on my shoulder.
“Mrs. Wells. It’s time.” Nerves crinkled his brow. His feet wiggled nervously in his hand-me-down dress shoes, polished for just this moment.
Yes, it was time. Time for us to celebrate this amazing evening and success. Celebrate his growth into someone he liked most of the time. Celebrate smiles and hugs.
“Celebrate life,” as he would say.
We went near the music, and we danced.
We talked, while Mom and Brother laughed as they looked on. They hadn’t experienced the journey. The wrong turns we’d corrected. The flat tires. The anger. The missed landmarks. Now, these were in our rear view mirror. There would be no more Un-acceptable, Un-wanted, or Un-Anything added to his cum folder. In fact, just a string of “A’s” he’d earned for the first time in his life, while finding pride in doing so.
Together, we had made it through 3rd Grade.
As we created a twirly, awkward, heart-smiling, “3rd Grade-Magical” dance, my love of teaching was apparent to everyone there. His new love of learning poured through his smiles shining back to me. His heart sang sweet “Thank You, Mrs. Wells” to mine. Forever one of the moments in which I knew, with certainty, I was my version of The Best Teacher Ever.
“Jimmy. My Jim’s. We dance on in my heart, sweet child. 3rd Grade Special you will forever be to me.”
Returning to the present, new parents were arriving bringing their shining children brimming with excitement. Kate Wells smiled and settled in for the show. She, Mrs. Wells, framed by the window and surrounded by her beautiful memories. She watched, her smile affirming all that goodness right outside her door.
Joy Hurt — Spring 2000 — And yes, I was Mrs. Wells. My student — Bailey. A great heart. A wonderful boy who made me a better person for having known him.
