It was such a nice surprise to see this. Your warmth radiates from the words you write about Mikki…it has been so long since her death…there were so many things I had forgotten about her. I had no idea that Margaret (Mrs. Rhodes to me) taught Mikki up until high school. How did I not know this when she gave me piano lessons for so long? Anyway, thank you for the memories you shared. Thank you for all you have done for my family, as well.

I now believe I was blessed to be raised in the rural part of our state, with fields to wander, dusty roads to my friends’ homes, and teachers that knew my name, my brother’s and sisters’ names, where I lived, who my parents were and on and on. So few people have had that experience and it made me very grounded and able to deal with the blows of life. I lost one of my precious sons when he was eighteen and at college. He went into a diabetic coma, caused by an infection of some sort, and died within 4 hours. He was in Chicago at St Xavier’s University and loving life! My husband and I weren’t there as he took his last breaths, and believe me, it has taken every minute of the past seven years to get ourselves back to an even keel. But thanks to the fact that when I was a child, I saw animals and people die as a natural part of living, and I had people to remind me that life had worth and that it was important that I keep living no matter how heavy the burden, I have arrived on a different level of life. Will my life ever be the same? Of course not…he was far too much of a life force for us to ever say my life will be the same, but as he has reminded us in his own ways, we must keep going as it was only his work that was done, not ours.

You played a part in that. I wasn’t in Drama Club, but your classes were so different that Miss Harlan’s English classes. I bless her memory as well, because I needed that structure, but I also needed to know that talent comes in all forms and that a grown teacher can be as free flowing and witty as you were (and are!) and still teach us important life lessons. I still cannot read “Our Town” without dissolving into tears.

Now,when I am fortunate enough to have the chance, I try to thank those who played a part in making me strong enough to last through what life has held. Consider yourself thanked!! I appreciate the time you spent, overworked and underpaid, to help to reasssure a skinny girl from Charlottesville that she, too, would make a contribution to the world.