The Scraps of the Quilt of Life.
“Miss Miller, Miss Miller! This is for you!” The first grader hands me a beautiful pink pedaled flower from the flowering bushes that line the outdoor walls of our school. She giggles and dashes off to play ten steps with the others.
I’ve made a friend in an avid car guy. He understands the car lingo and it feels like a chat with an Ohio home boy. On that topic, this is “home” and Ohio is “home home” with emphasis on the first word.
A walk along 21st Avenue is a balm for the soul. “The Singing Civics” which directly translates to my cos and I, watch the beautiful sunset and jabber about all the latest interesting news we’ve heard. We wave at almost every car as it is probably a fellow traveler in this earthly sojourn. A youth boy zips by on a side by side and loses his hat precisely two feet in front of us. He says it was an accident and we laugh and tell him that worked out perfectly if he was wanting to chat with us!
“Come on over to my folks’ house for lunch!” says a school board wife. It is indeed a family deal, but they make us feel welcome enough that we feel like family for the afternoon. I will always strive to be more like our hostess and her way of making people feel comfortable.
“Hi, Miss Miller! The younger sister of my student runs at me and throws her arms around my legs. “Hi, Saylor. How are you?” “I am good!” Her pure boundless energy and joy is catching. Her blue eyes sparkle as she tells me about the mud puddle she played in that afternoon. Oh how I wish to also play in a mud puddle. Aside from the terrible mess that I would leave in our house, that I would have to clean up!
“Can I give you a hug?” says a dear friend during a ball game. She knew that I was struggling, but little did she know how much that eased the load.
The teacher flubs up the words while she’s talking. The students’ faces show small grins and when the teacher starts laughing, they start laughing too. When the second grader can’t seem to pronounce the name Felix over and over, we all get out a laugh including the student and then it is pronounced correctly.
After returning home from a board meeting or a ball game, the UC teachers sit on the counters in the kitchen or sprawl in the living room and discuss the night’s events or topics of interest. Even if they get home early sometimes, it is a little later than they expected when they finally get to bed!
It is art class in Miss Miller’s room. After the initial explanation of art has been discussed, they set off with cheery enthusiasm. Soon the classroom is filled with singing. Little voices that aren’t always on tune are singing their favorite round, Jesus I Adore Thee. Their teacher records a snippet of them singing and later when she listens to it, it makes her realize why she does this job.
Lunchtime is exciting. The bell rings and the kids stand expectantly. The recess picker has prayer. Their prayers are much more detailed than when I prayed at their age. No matter which child is praying, one phrase is the same: “And be with the teachers.” Little do they know how much their prayer will touch their teacher’s heart and how many times she has prayed for them.
Merriam-Webster defines singing as the following: a: to produce musical tones by means of the voice and b: to utter words in musical tones and with musical inflections and modulations. In the not so small home on 21st, singing is a greatest enjoyment. The Sugar Creek teachers sing in the car and they sing in the evenings and they sing on a Sunday afternoon before they go dashing off to other plans. They may sing the same songs over and over and they may struggle to find a pitch, but the enjoyment they find in it doesn’t dampen their spirits.
Who knew you could fit so many people in your heart? If you want to find out how to do so, try teaching school. No matter how cliche it sounds, teaching is a work of the heart. “The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.”