Unexpected Encounters

After a field trip to the state museum here, I was on a park playground with my kindergartners, following our picnic lunch. It was a busy place with children from other schools out enjoying the spring day.

A young woman approached me and called me by name, asking the dreaded question, ”Do you remember me?” I hesitated and she named the school where I teach. Then I noticed she had on a name tag. I did indeed remember her, though she had certainly grown up.

I said, “I remember you well! Do YOU remember what I remember most clearly about you?” She grinned and said she did.

When she was a kindergartner, I used to drive past her bus stop every morning on the way to school. I still drive the same route. It is a two-lane country road over hilly terrain. One foggy morning, I came over a hill and there she was, lying in the middle of the road. I about had a stroke. As I approached, she popped up. I pulled the car into the little church lot that was the bus stop and gave a brief lecture about how dangerous that was and sent all of the kids to the church porch to wait for the bus that morning. These were the same kids who had dared her to do it.

At school, I was still shaking when I reported the incident to the office.

Though she is now in college working towards becoming a teacher of young children, there are mornings when I come over that hill and still see that tiny girl stretched out in the road.