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accidentally forgot. She then smiled and told me I could still bring my gift the next day to help out a kid who forgot their gift the following year. It was amazing to me how she always knew what to do, and I felt good I would be helping someone.

The boys and girls gifts were separately numbered, and everyone took turns drawing a number out of a bucket. I got a very nice journal and an ink pen with blue feathers on the end of it, which I immediately started trying to tickle Becky with. Becky got a big hair bow set, and by the end of the day I had traded her the pen for two scrunchiesit was a good day.

The afternoon buses at our school ran in two shifts, and Becky's bus was first shift. So I sat with my journal on my desk, doodling butterflies around my name I had carefully written in my best cursive. Ms. Andrews sat at her desk checking homework, and four other kids in the room playing at their desks with their gifts. I thought it was as good of an opportunity as any to ask a question I'd had on my mind all day.

"Ms. Andrews, why do some people have to be poor?"

She looked up from her desk and was fighting hard to keep her composure. Tears began to stream down her face, and she walked over to my desk and crouched down to my level.

"Listen carefully to me, okay?" as she wiped the tears that were beginning to form in my own eyes for making my favorite teacher sad.

"Okay."

"You are a bright and wonderful little girl, and someday you are going to grow up and become anything that you want to be. That does not mean it will always be easy. There are mean people out there that want to tell you you're always going to be poor or that you can't do something. Don't listen to them-seek out good people who want you to do well. Just keep trying, no matter what."

The genuine kindness and sincerity of her words caused something to enter my life that I had never really experienced before then-a real hope for my own future. It was like the spark that developed into an inner fire, and it never has gone out.

I listened to her, and she was right. There were struggles and obstacles, but I made it through them with the help of God and a lot of other good people He brought into my life. I graduated from college, got married, and my husband and I now own our own businesses. My story is not unique-Becky has gone on to medical school, and several of our friends from back then are also doing well.

So to all caring teachers who often wonder if you're getting through to your studentsJust keep trying, because your kindness may be the one thing in a child's life that sets off a chain reaction of hope in their heart, and their world will never be the same.

Learn more about this author, Patricia Gilliam.
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