Braden has learned how to say “please,” when he wants something. He also says, “thank you,” and I’m struggling to make sure he understands how to use that phrase properly.

It’s so important.

Do you remember your senior year in high school? Teachers who were just so out of it? Do you remember all the things that were so very important to you?

So little that had previously been important to me was still important to me that year. I had always done well in school, had genuinely cared about my performance. Something shifted in me that year.

I just didn’t care anymore. College was just around the corner, and as such, you’d think I’d have been more worried than ever about letting my grade point average slip.

But no. I skipped classes. I diddled and ignored what was going on while I was in classes.

Some of my teachers doubted my actual abilities; how could they not? One of them for sure did not.

She wore stockings with open-toed sandles. Her hair was short and very permed. She spoke sort of strangely. She was totally into Beowulf. She was the perfect target for mockery and insult.

And that’s what I used as my shield of defense. While she worked to crack through my Senior Year Apathy and inspire the student she somehow knew was hidden within, I deflected her efforts by mocking her mentally. I made her into an icon of ridicule in my mind, so I wouldn’t have to admit to myself that she was right. That she cared.  That I should listen to her.

The soft-hearted part of me would have never been able to keep it up. Not if I allowed myself to see her as a real, caring person.

So I mocked her with friends. We made fun of the strange way she talked, her appearance, her quirks. We laughed, we told jokes.

I was obnoxious to her. I didn’t finish work on time. I tried to avoid her. She persevered and she got to me.

I told myself I was performing just to get her off my back. She taught me things. I wrote better and better. I saw her for real. I appreciated her. I did not admit it to anyone.

I never thanked her.

In college, my performance in English and with other writing was directly affected by her earlier attention to me. I applied things she coached me on when she was forcing her way persistently through the stupid shell I was sporting back then.

I never thanked her.

She used to come in to the Diary Queen where I worked while I was in college, with her husband, and she would ask me about how I was doing. She would tell me what a good English major I would make. That I could be an excellent writer. She was proud of me. It made me feel good about myself. I appreciated her.

I never thanked her.

I heard rumors through the grape-vine of a small town. And I began to see that she seemed more frail when she would come to the store with her husband.

I never thanked her.

One day, her husband came for ice cream alone. And every time after that, he was alone.

I had never thanked her.

The brain tumor had claimed her life, and for all that she gave me, I never thanked her.

I never thanked her.

Just two words, but a huge regret.

Thank you, Mrs. Tester.  Thank you.  I’m sorry it was so hard for me to learn how important it is to say those words.

Thank you.