We got some sad news on Wednesday. Eler Beth's principal passed away that morning. She had been ill for some time, and they had had an interim principal so far all this year. I called the school about something else Wednesday and the secretary told me. She asked me if I'd like them to tell Eler Beth separately instead of with the rest of her class. (Eler Beth's anxiety stems from unresolved grief after my father's death.) I thought about it, but decided that it would be better for her to be with her classmates. But I did ask that her favorite staff member that she's able to talk to be there in case she needed her.
I first met Mrs. Emily in the Fall of 1995 when my son started kindergarten. I was pregnant with Eler Beth at the time. Over the years I'd become friends with Mrs. Emily on a personal level, not just as parent and principal. I've always done a lot at school and when Eler Beth was a baby, a toddler and a pre-schooler, most weeks we were at the school almost every day doing something. She even went along with me most of the time when I went with Andrew's class on field trips! I started running the school store when Andrew was in the fourth grade, and he and Eler Beth helped me. Now she is still my little assistant. I was the PAC (Parent Advisory Council) Co-Chair when Andrew was in the fifth grade.
Eler Beth grew up at that school. When she was a baby she was very shy with anyone but us. I can remember Mrs. Emily trying to get her to talk to her, but Eler Beth would smile and say nothing. One day when she was four years old, we were in the teacher prep room, and I had to go get something from the secretary, so I told Eler Beth to stay sitting at the table where she was coloring, and I stepped into the secretary's office. I saw Mrs. Emily walk in to talk to Eler Beth, so I took my time. On my way back to the room Mrs. Emily came out and said to me with a big smile and a shine in her eyes, "She actually talked to me! We sat there and had a real conversation!"
Mrs. Emily loved the kids in her school. You could tell in the way she talked to them and about them and the way she dealt with them and their parents. She was tough and loving all at the same time. I've known principals who want the position because they can use it as a political stepping stone, but not Mrs. Emily. She had been a good teacher for many years before she became a principal, and she had never stopped using those teaching skills.
Well, after that day Eler Beth made a point of talking to Mrs. Emily and Eler Beth would call her "My friend, Mrs. Emily." Last year all of our schools began a program called D.E.A.R. which stands for Drop Everything And Read. At the end of the day for 15 minutes everone stops what he/she is doing and reads. The teachers, the office staff, the students, classroom parents, visitors (there is a box of books on the table in the lobby, so no one has an excuse!) everyone! And the principal would visit a different classroom every day that she was able and read to that class.
Well my daughter came home one day about three weeks into the school year last year and said, gesturing wildly, "She changed my life! Mrs. Emily changed my life!" I laughed and said that was great. Just exactly how had she changed her life? She told me about dropping everything and reading, and that when they read that day she was really excited about it and now she couldn't wait to read some more of her book. "Now I love to read, Mom!"
I'd been wondering when her love of reading would "kick in". After all, a daughter of mine who didn't spend all her extra time reading?? For some reason that was the year and she gave the credit to Mrs. Emily. It just happened that we were going to an event at school that night, so I got the chance to sit and talk with Mrs. Emily for a few minutes. I told her what Eler Beth had said, and just how my little drama queen had said it. Mrs. Emily was tickled. She explained to me that it wasn't just her and their school, but that every school in the system was doing it, but that she was very glad that Eler Beth had discovered that she loved to read, and that it had changed her life!
We had a really nice talk that night, and I'm so glad we did, because that was the last long, personal conversation I had with her. Not long before the end of the school year she had to have some surgery and never quite recovered from it. There were no complications from the surgery, but she had other health problems and her health just went downhill. She was a relatively young woman, too. She was in and out of the hospital for a few months, then suffered several attacks where she had to be resuscitated. For the past few months she had been in a nursing home and I had been told at the beginning of the school year that she would not be leaving it. So I'd been trying to prepare Eler Beth for the inevitable. It came sooner than I'd thought.
I will miss that lady, and I regret that someone else will be at the helm for the last year and a half of Eler Beth's elementary years. I regret that the new school she had fought for and wanted for so long is in the process of being built and that she won't be there to see Eler Beth in the first class to graduate from it.
Mrs. Emily was Eler Beth's friend and admirer. She always told me that she loved Eler Beth's spunk and Andrew's creativity. She was a nice, gentle, tough, intelligent, happy nurturer and she will be greatly missed. Whenever I hear All I EVER NEEDED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN I will think of her because she read it to every group of parents of incoming kindergartners and at every fifth grade graduation. When I mentioned once that I was afraid Andrew might be daydreaming too much in class, she replied with a little half smile and a wistful look in her eye, "Oh, I always thought a little daydreaming was a good thing."
Her funeral was today. Eler Beth was able to talk about it on Wednesday. At first she said she wanted to go to the funeral, but then changed her mind. I didn't push for that. I know that Mrs. Emily's family, her colleagues and the people who'd known her longer and better than I must be having a terrifically hard time right now, and that my missing her is infinitessimal compared with their loss. But I am glad that I knew Mrs. Emily and had the time with her that I had. I'm glad she was my children's principal during their early years. I don't think they'll ever have a better one.
