This month in LitPark, Susan Henderson asked about Promise: "Tell me a story about someone seeing promise in you. What did they see, and how did this affect you?" Here is my reply:
My first grade teacher--the one who tied me to my chair because I wiggled and giggled too much in class--asked me to stay after school one day. I was terrified that I'd really done something bad. When all of the kids had left the room, she pulled out a paint-by-number set and told me that she was giving this to me because I loved to paint. She told me it had been her son's. Earlier in the year we'd learned that her son had been killed in a place with a weird name: Viet Nam.
While growing up I told everyone I wanted to be an artist, a painter. I wanted to pay back the promise Mrs. Jenkins saw in me. To do it though, I had to change the medium from paint, brushes and canvas, to letters, words and paper. Mrs. Jenkins will always hold a special place in my heart.
Go ahead and tell us a story about someone seeing promise in you, then skip on over to LitPark and share it there.
3 comments:
Caroylyn, I absolutely love your childhood memory. Although I'm not thrilled with the tying up bit, I'm quite touched by the teacher's kindness in giving you her son's paint-by-numbers. Wouldn't she love to know that you remember her?
a very free spirited teacher of mines in my senior year of high school submitted one of her works for a scholarship and gave the money to me that she won. i will forever remember her.
seasonal lust--What a wonderful teacher to do such an unselfish thing. I just perused your blog and saw just a glimpse of wht that teacher saw in you. Be blissed.
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