Serendipity
There have been a lot of kids over the past 30-some years. A lot. Some remember you. Some you remember. Some fondly. Some not.
This one was special. He was a person with high-functioning autism. In trouble. A lot. Somehow he glommed onto me. They kept him in French because he, somehow, behaved for me. Not that he learned any French. I was his ‘hot pass’ person. He moved on. Dropped out of high school. Lots of trouble. But he still kept coming back and visiting. I knew his grandma, his mom, his little brother. He kept getting taller and getting more tattoos. Tried this and that. Finally got a GED.
Well, Friday was my last day teaching. I was faking it for the kids. I didn’t want to go through any explanations or good-byes. So I was standing in the hallway, watching the kids and there he was. Tall and tattooed. He has a wife, a child, a job.
I wonder what the kids thought, seeing me hugging this grown-up kid. On my worst day, my last day, there was grace and redemption, if I can use those terms. No matter how much I felt I was quitting, giving up, a failure…there he was, letting me know that my being there for him all those years ago had made a difference.
We can’t save them all. We can’t help them all. But there are some you remember. And some that remember you..