Christmas Eve was gloomy and dismal around here. It couldn’t even muster up enough energy to rain; instead, it drizzled a cool, sad mist all day. I was so busy preparing for festivities that would be occurring at my house for the next two days – people were coming in from three states and numerous cities within my state – that I almost forgot to get the mail every day for a week!
On Christmas Eve, I was baking a zillion cookies – you know the ones that look festive at Christmas but you can never eat them all with all the other food around so you end up throwing half of them away by New Year’s Eve? That’s what I was doing – baking with the movie The Polar Express on in the background – and trying to work in this little activity or that after each baking sheet went in the oven. So it went like this: put the dough in the oven, turn on the timer, run and do something like wrap a gift or tie a bow on the porchlight or GET THE MAIL before this batch is done.
I ran outside in that drizzly yuck and reached in the mailbox. I was accustomed to looking through a pile of “last minute gift idea” ads and a handful of gorgeous holiday cards containing smiling friends and family members and their adorable kids, and this day would be no different. However, this time, on this painfully busy Christmas Eve, there was a letter. It appeared to be personal, although I didn’t recognize the name on the return address.
I opened it, trying to skim quickly, because the cookies were about to be done, but soon stopped dead in my tracks and started over. This one, it seemed, was important. This one required that every word be read and reread, just so I could be sure not to miss a thing. I am sharing the letter here (but leaving out names since I don’t have permission from the author…)
Dear Mrs. Rigsbee,
A former student that I had a long time ago has become a marvelous teacher. She has taught for ten years and is currently serving as a ——- at —– Elementary in North Carolina. She heard you speak at her district’s annual Teacher Leader Retreat.
My former student, ——-, was quite impressed when you spoke of Finding Mrs. Warnecke: The Difference Teachers Make. She felt encouraged by your speech to reach out to teachers in her life who made a difference. I am honored to be one of them.
I had ——- in the second grade. She was a quiet, hard-working young lady who had lost her dad tragically in an accident. She was a joy to teach.
In 2010 she amazed me when she surprised me and came to visit me in my classroom. She stayed for the entire day gleaning ideas and making copies of things. It was fun to have her visit. She is still quiet and unassuming, and it was a delight to learn that she wanted to use my ideas. After all, I had taught her so long ago.
Now I am retired from teaching. I love retirement but I am concerned with whether or not I can continue to make a difference. Last night I opened up the mail and found a letter from my former student. Wow. I could hardly read it; the tears just streamed down my cheeks. She had chosen me as a teacher who make a difference in her life. She did this as a result of hearing you speak.
I want you to know that you are making a difference. The ripple of the water reached me at Christmastime, a time that was always so powerful in the classroom and that I truly miss. Like the little boy in The Polar Express I felt so special receiving ——-‘s letter as the first gift of Christmas.
Thank you for teaching and reaching the teachers in North Carolina and everywhere. My heart is warmed to know that teachers teach teachers and then reach back and remind us all to be grateful of those who made a difference in their lives.
Sincerely,
———, Retired Teacher (32 years)
Reading that letter opened up a floodgate of tears that interrupted all that cookie baking and movie watching for a good while. What this teacher didn’t know is that I struggle daily myself, and have ever since I left the classroom in 2008, to understand how I can make a difference without thirty grinning middle schoolers hanging on my words (or ignoring my words…depending on the circumstances.) I have had a perpetual identity crisis but have pushed forward, hoping that if I’m not impacting children, perhaps I can impact teachers.
So this letter that appeared magically on Christmas Eve is one of a thousand things I have referred to in the last two weeks as “a Christmas miracle.” My daughter’s flight was able to get off the ground in snowing Missouri? A Christmas miracle! I was able to purchase, wrap, and place gifts under the tree for four kids, three spouses, and six grandchildren without losing one? A Christmas miracle! I said it so much my six-year-old granddaughter said to me, in reaction to something I don’t even remember now, “I know…it’s a Christmas Tree Miracle.” Yes, Piper, it is!
This letter came to me at the perfect time and held the perfect message. So….if you’re a teacher, and you’re reading this…even if you’re not a teacher, and you’re reading this – please consider contacting the teachers who made a difference in your life! Finding my first grade teacher Mrs. Warnecke after 45 years has changed everything for me…and maybe a little bit for her. As I said on Good Morning America, “We as teachers don’t always know that we’ve made a difference. She was that person for me.”
Who was your “person?” I hope you can find him or her in the coming new year.
Little did Piper know – when she changed my “A Christmas Miracle” to “A Christmas TREE Miracle” that there’s a movie by that name! And, yes, it’s time to believe….