I was looking for something totally different last evening when I came across it once again. It was on the bottom shelf of the bookcase stacked alongside several notebooks where I found the beautiful scrapbook that the students and staff back at Lincoln Elementary in Hutchinson, Kansas had made for Mike and I. It was our wedding present, a parting remembrance of a time so very special to me. When one of the teachers asked me what I would like as a gift before leaving that week I could think of only one thing.
"Please make me a scrapbook of the memories that are here. I will miss you."
And so they did.
It was on the last official work day of the year for USD 308 staff members that they presented it to me on the day before we left to go home to Colorado. We had just gotten married there in that same spot underneath the basketball goal in the gym/school cafeteria little more than 12 hours before. The adults sitting in the chairs and the little children scattered all around us would forever have their memories preserved in that beautiful album. I was way too overcome with emotion to even pretend to look much through it that morning. I packed it away with my other things and it was well into my first year here before I ever dared to get it out again.
I looked at it one day early in 2014 and smiled at the remembrances. About midway through I began to feel those old familiar twangs of homesickness mixed in with loneliness and decided to put it away. Having come so far in feeling better about living way out here in Colorado, I didn't want to start feeling sad again. I tucked it away, out of sight and out of mind. I never thought about it again.
Until last night.
Yesterday, February 5th of 2015, 3 months shy of two years since receiving it, I made it all the way through. Instead of feeling sad and lonely about it, I felt happy and very much loved. Each of those pages were filled with special pictures and kind messages. As I finally reached the end of the scrapbook, it was with the realization of just how blessed I was to spend my last 3 years of education in the state of Kansas at that little school on the corner of Bigger and Maple streets. They were 3 years that I had not intended to have but after having failed retirement miserably in 2010, it was where I found myself.
And the weird thing was this. I didn't even realize that I was lost.
There was a page dedicated to the memories of our 4H club back there, one that I helped to begin along with my dear friends Jessica and Alicia. Lincoln 4H was only a couple of years old but we were able reach a group of kids who had some special talents and gifts. How fun it was to watch them grow and change, right before my very eyes!
My dear and sweet colleagues in the Title I room added their own special page. We shared a lot of memories together during that time as we tried our best to develop small group rotations of students in both reading and math throughout our building. I learned from them and that was a great thing for me. That knowledge came with me, over the big mountain and down to the other side to a little town called Olathe, Colorado where it is being put into practice each and every school day.
The 4th graders of that year are now getting ready to finish up their 6th grade year. One of them, a sweet little boy named Ezequiel, is a good artist. He designed the picture that would be placed upon the top of the wedding cake that his teacher, my good friend Kris, made for us to enjoy that day. I still have the original drawing, one that he discreetly hid inside his school desk so I would not see it when I came into his classroom.
Each and every message is so sweet and heartfelt and although looking at the book didn't make me sad this time, I have to admit I choked up at a few of them. I think that is ok though. It shows that I am still very much alive and that my heart is filled with so much love for them still. I hope that they know that.
I want them to know that I still remember them.
Always.
I keep up with the folks back there through daily visits to Facebook and through emails and occasional visits back home to Kansas. I admire each and every one of them for what they continue to do for the good of children. Of course it is not easy, this business of making sure that every child receives the education that they not only need, but deserve as well. Yet they are just like teachers everywhere in this great world of ours.
They don't give up.
Ever.
Very soon it will be time to head just a few miles up the road for the final day of the school week at Olathe Elementary. There I will find my new friends and colleagues who all work very diligently themselves to provide a quality education for the children who live along the Western Slopes of the Rocky Mountains. I continue to learn every day, and although sometimes I seem to learn the hard way, I usually never forget the lesson. I'm fortunate, blessed beyond measure, to be able to teach with the fine staff that I am with here. I have made friends and found an anchor in a place that I didn't even know existed three years ago.
What a gift!
I would never be able to relay each and every message written inside of that special book in this blog post but some of the ones that made me smile are shown below. To those sweet people and dear friends that I had to leave behind that day, please know that I am doing just fine here. I think of you each day with a grateful heart.
It was my privilege to know you.
Please remember me. I will always be remembering of you.
From the 4th graders~
From my principal who helped me to escape from being locked inside of my windowless classroom after the longest 14 minutes of my life one day, a couple of weeks before school was out for the year.
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