TEACHER

She has always been beautiful. Even now, in her sixties, she naturally attracts people's eyes. She can't help it.

She started teaching when she was nineteen. Students flocked around her, other teachers liked her. Something about her patient, quiet manner made her kids' try to do the best they could for her. They wanted to see her smile. To hear the words of praise she'd give when a job was well done. Her voice is like honey.

She married a Marine in 1969. A pilot. During Vietnam, she paced her small, dull house, waiting on news of him, that he was safe. Alone. She moved when he moved, she cleaned and cooked. Made for him, a home, and soon, she had her first baby. A daughter. Another task she did by herself.

She finished her education, worked until late and was up when it was still dark, and she deployed with him to other countries. Foreign and unfriendly, she was by his side.

After the war, she worked while he reached for his dreams of becoming a lawyer. Paying for his classes, taking care of the house and her family, teaching her students, it was her life and she loved it.

She had three more pregnancies, two babies and one stillborn child. She cried herself raw, got back on her feet, and shined again. She savored her babies all the more.

She took care of her cancer ridden mother. Giving her baths and helping her fix her wig; she drove her to appointments and wiped the tears from her eyes when she could no longer speak with tears in her own eyes. She buried her mother, was the strength for her family, when she had none for herself.

She forgave her husband's indiscretions until he mailed her divorce papers and married his pregnant coworker. She became a single parent, moved to a new city, and she started her life again... With nothing.

She touched the lives of hundreds, thousands, of children during her teaching career. When she retired, her classroom cried. They didn't want her to leave.

She became a grandmother along the way, a good one. She'd spoil the grandbabies, love them, and hold them close as she rocked them to sleep. They'd call her when they were sad, broken. She comforted her children and grandchildren when they had dark days, when they'd fail and fall, and she was the voice of reason when reason could not be found.

She never left her son's side when he had that terrible accident. The brain injury which put him in a coma for weeks, the ICU for months, made him learn to walk again, and stole away his

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