I taught high school for years and had the joy of knowing many wonderful kids. One student, Scott Wood, was especially close to my heart. What I taught was Creative Writing. Scott wrote quite well His talent is beyond the teacher's ability to teach. He was able to express through his written words well and it enabled me to light his way a little.
Scott and other students were often in my home, at my kitchen table, sharing supper .It was amazing to me that what I said to them about life and love, and making time for the important things influenced them in their daily life. I watched them use these lessons they learnt in their lives as I followed their lives after graduation. Scott, especially, didthis, and still does this today.
Recently I told him I feel particularly down these days. I couldn't stop thinking about the sad and unpleasant things in the life. Here is what he emailed back to me.
I remember you coming into the class one day late .You continued to tell all of us hat you were late because of very special reason. It had snowed the night before but instead of cleaning the ice off your windows in the car, you let the car heater lake cane of t and you sat and watched in wonder as he water slowly started flowing down your window. I think about this a lot when the weather begins getting cold, how most of us miss the simple treasure-ice melting. Life is full happiness and sadness. But every day is a gift, right? Life is not a lack of beauty, but lack of the find the beauty .Is that not what you always told us? That is how you lived and that is how you toll t to live.
Ice melting. I do not remember his thing but, thinking back, it seems very true. That is what I believed, that is what I taught.
You know, just to make it clean, an "ice -melting moment "to me is that moment you stop time for-you stop everything for -because it is too precious to miss .Scott, my student long ago, made me remember to never be too busy to stop the world, stop the clock for the magical moments in our daily lives.
