Turning Points

Another Turning Point


“Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
So make the best of this test, and don't ask why
It's not a question, but a lesson learned in time
It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.
So take the photographs, and still frames in your mind
Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time”
Lyrics to Another Turning Point by Green Day
I posted this on my classroom blog this week but it is worth putting up for others to see too. Lessons learned in time.
Another year has slipped by and some of you I will say goodbye to for the second or third time. Some of you will leave the Memorial Family for the last time as your youngest now moves on and “ another turning point” has been reached. I had the opportunity to experience one of those turning points just recently as our oldest son was married. I thought of all the ‘waiting’ times I had spent over the years. Waiting for him to be born, waiting for his first tooth, his first step, his first words. Proud for the first day of school and before I knew it he was graduating from high school, and then college. There is much anticipation around the waiting game we play in life. We have spent the last year, waiting for the wedding day and then, it was here, and now it is gone. I remember the girl who did cannonballs in her parent’s pool and swung like a monkey from the rope swing in the backyard. I remember the girl who only wanted to be a teacher and a mother and hoped to be as good as her own mother at all she did in life. I look in the mirror and wonder at where the years have gone and realize that girl is still there, tucked on many ‘heartshelves’, keeping all the ‘still frames’ of memories like photographs to be viewed over and over as time goes by.
Every June, I watch the children excitedly prepare to move on. I know how much we have shared as a classroom of friends. I have spent every day of the last 9 months with each of them. I have come to know their strengths and their weaknesses. I am proud of them and I worry about them. I laugh with them and I am sad with them. The dictionary defines teacher as ‘someone who instructs’ but I can’t imagine that any parent would expect that their child would spend a year with someone who ‘just instructs’ their child.
I recall when I was pregnant with my second son, I worried that I would not love him as much as I loved my first son. I couldn’t imagine how I could possibly have those same feelings for this new baby that I already had for my first. Of course, when our second son was born, I realized that this feeling just doubled. Last year, I packed up the 4th graders, and couldn’t imagine how I could care as much for another new class of students. Now, those new students are the ones that I must say goodbye to. They are the ones that I say, ‘how can I care as much for any other class of students?’ It is the same every year. Somehow, those children creep into my heart, into my very being, become a part of me and when the year is done, I know that they are snugly packed on the heartshelf of my life.
There are many lessons learned in time, and this is one of them.