Facing His Past
Notes About A Student
Stroudsburg High School
Stroudsburg, PA
1992-95
Found- 2016
Throughout my career, I saved notes
and letters all the time. Every time someone send me a nice message or an
encouraging email, I saved it. I kept all
those letters in the top left hand drawer of my desk. And when moments of work were a drag, I’d
open that drawer and just read a few notes until I was back on track.
When I had enough notes to fill a
shoe box, I did and I stored those boxes away and ended up with 15 or 20 of
them. And I would go through some of
them in bits and pieces over the last 30 years.
They were notes from students and their parents, teachers whom I respected
and they respect me, funny St. Patrick’s Day cards and quotes of
encourage. The sheer volume of them were
enough to keep me going, even on the toughest days.
But now I have been retired for 5
years and it is time to downsize. I should get rid of stuff. So, I open these
boxes and anguished over so many of these long forgotten correspondences. I
read everyone and make a quick decision: keep it or burn it in the fireplace. In an evening, I go through 5 boxes and am
left with 2 boxes. That is progress.
In this midst of this freeing
activity, I find several things from one student: two letters from him when he
served in the military, two copies of a made-at-home magazine he started when
he was 19; a note from his mother and a copy of a published article he wrote
when his son was born; a letter from his father in prison, asking me to
intervene and help him re-establish a relationship with his estranged son.
This student had a special place
in my heart. He had a tough life and we
all knew it. He prevailed despite the
odds and came out on the other side as a good father, husband and citizen. I reconnected with him on Facebook and sent
him these things I found. He made a
public proclamation on social media that he cried when he received my
package. Then he sent me this private
message:
HIM: I knew my mom had written you several
times, but I didn't know my dad had. I
have very little of him in my possession, so just seeing his handwriting
brought me to tears. I can't just say
thank you, because those words just don't convey my gratitude. There is so much more in that envelope than
you can ever known, and I think it's going to take me some time to find all if
it.
But dear god I was a naïve kid
22 years ago! Why didn't anyone ever
tell me? (HA! As if I’d have listened)
ME: I can't
begin to tell you how much you followed me through these last 22 years. I saved
a lot of stuff from my work. But every
time I moved, something of yours showed up somewhere in some unopened box. As I was putting the envelope together, I had
regret that I didn't save your dad's letter and then suddenly, I found it on my
kitchen table. The moment spooked me.
HIM: I always
tried to keep in touch with the people who made the biggest impact on my
life. I was a terrible student who was
always in trouble, and by the time I realized the impact that was going to have
on me it was too late to keep going in that direction. Eventually I found my own way to do it, but I
still needed help.
You didn't have
to help me when I wanted to go to rehab, or when I wanted to get a GED, or when
I needed a Diploma to join the Navy. But
you did, just as I'm sure you did similar things for countless of your other
students. You didn't hold our hands, and you didn't sugar coat anything. But
you cared about all of us more than probably any of us had any right to.
So now I'm
sitting here rereading a 26-year-old letter from my father that I never knew
existed, and I've been fighting back tears from the instant I saw his
handwriting on his trademark legal paper.
And I'm reading in his voice realizing that from a prison cell in New
Jersey he understood how much you cared and wanted to thank you for that. It's a side of him I don't know as well as I
wish I did. I didn't think anybody could
have given me a gift that moved me so much.
I didn't know I could be moved that deeply.
So here you
are, two decades after the fact, still making a difference, and it makes me so
damn proud to be able to call someone like you my friend.
ME: OK, now I have to take the
CRYBABY statement off your FACEBOOK wall.
I remember getting your dad's letter.
It overwhelmed me as I didn't know what to do. I never heard you talk of
your dad so I didn't want to open a wound.
Maybe this was the best time to hear from him. And I saved these things
because you left an impression on me.
Bridget
HIM: Oh no. Intake it as a
compliment. I cried like a little
girl. today I needed it.
I probably could have done without that picture of me with my
ex-wife, but even that was a pleasant surprise.
ME: I wasn’t sure if it was Fawn or not so I pulled that photo
out and put it back in several times. Then I decided not to edit at this point.
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