A Teacher Gone

I've had several posts about my 2nd grade teacher and at the end of my presentations I thank her for the doors she opened but getting me interested in more than just my small world at the time. You would not be reading this if not for her because I doubt my world and self-awareness would've been wide. Would I be happy? Perhaps, but I wouldn't have been an author, I wouldn't have loved to learn about new places, and I probably would not have had the social skills to make it to my dream job at the Indy 500. She did this all by using my interests to springboard outward. She used Kansas before there was real understanding of the autism spectrum, and this was four years before Asperger's would be put in the DSM.

When I thank her at presentations, I make sure to let those in attendance know that they may do amazing, life changing things for a person on the spectrum and may never know the impact of their work because it may take a decade or two for those seeds to sprout. After making that point, I say it's a minor tragedy that they may never know because the end result may be more than they ever could have imagined. I often would wonder as I say this what my second-grade teacher would think.

Every so often I will do random searches on Google, and I would often try and find my teacher on the internet. I never have had any luck with all of my searches. Now, if I found her and, say, she was on Facebook I don't know if I'd be able to say, "hi, remember me from 1990..." 

On Saturday, I came across my yearbook from that year and I noticed something. I had her name wrong. It wasn't with an e but an i. It was Jindra, not Jendra. I went back to searching and there it was straightaway, an obituary from 2020. She was 89.

My exact words at a presentation, when I talk about her and my fourth-grade teachers are, "I don't know if they're alive, but I wish I could simply say 'thank you.'" I'll never get that chance, but I wonder how many other teachers out there have opened up doors for individuals and will never realize it. An athlete trains and trains for that opportunity to win, and that win is tangible the day of the victory. A teacher though? They put in early mornings, late nights, and, at least in my case a student, would not get any bit of positive reinforcement or words of thanks. Of course, I had no idea at the time about the seeds they were planting, but to think of just how much work teaching is and to potentially not know how the stories of the seeds being planted turn up is... it takes a different kind of person I think to pull it off with the grace Mrs. Jindra did.

When I present next, I'm going to have to change my words. I can no longer say in wonderment if I'll ever get the chance to say "thank you". I won't be able to say that I might get the chance. I might stumble with my words. I might get a tear or two, but I hope the audience can relay this into their life and, if they are a teacher, I hope they can keep the passion to educate, and plant seeds that will better their students understanding of the world more than they could ever have imagined.