~and if our paths should cross again~

     I got an email a couple of weeks ago from a former student of mine back in Kansas.  I hadn't seen that kid since I taught him in the second grade nearly 35 years ago.  Somehow or another, he tracked me down and just wanted to let me know that he was thinking of me and appreciated the fact that I was his teacher.  

     It was a sweet remembrance of a little boy who had now grown to be a 42-year old man with 4 children of his own.  I played only a small part in his life as second grade came and went that year.  But to be remembered by him meant so much to me.  My heart was happy.  He wanted me to know that he lived back home in Hutchinson once more and that any time I was back there, I should definitely let him know.  He wanted his wife and children to meet me.

     I told him I would and was looking forward to a chance to see him once again.  Funny how our paths had crossed once more, even after those many years.

     I have met so many people in my lifetime.  Some have come and stayed forever while others have come and then gone away, never to be seen again.  Every once in a while there will be someone who is there, goes away, and then returns again.  And then when they return, it is as if they never went away in the first place.  You just pick the conversation back up where you once left off.  Those are rare moments, nearly a miracle in my book.  Yet they do happen and perhaps you will be lucky enough to be a witness to it yourself.

     I have been.

     I was going through pictures this weekend, as I often do, and couldn't help but to notice just how many photos of former students I have.  Sometimes it was one taken during the regular school year and other times, it was in the summer school setting.  I have pictures of kids going way back in time and how happy I am that they were taken.  I even have pictures now of "reunions" of sort with children I once had who have now reconnected with me as an adult.  All of those memories are priceless to me and ones that I wouldn't trade for anything in this world.  

     I wonder how they are all doing.  I wonder if they are now in college, or married, or even around the area any longer.  Sadly I would have to admit that after nearly 40 years of doing this, I have forgotten a few of their names.  Yet I never forget their faces and the times that we crossed paths.  

     Sometimes people make their way back in life.  Cherish the moments that it happens.

     You won't regret it if you do.  You might regret it if you don't.

Little Nori is one of those people.  She called me "teacher" in the first grade.  

She and her classmates (Holly, Valerie, and Kim) surprised me one December day in 2010.  I hadn't seen them all since they were little tiny girls who all called me their teacher.  For the record, I am sure that I didn't teach them to do "bunny ears" during picture taking times.

This kid showed up at my classroom door the day before he graduated from high school.  He wanted to know if I remembered him.  John was a dear little boy who was in the very first class I taught at Lincoln Elementary back in 1999.  I hadn't seen him since then.  It made me proud to see the young man that he grew up to be.