Hey there K,.........

I recently was given a book to read that had been written about my former principal......he was a lovely man....a good human, deep into the crevices of his soul.....and in reading it I have been remembering him.....thinking of his time at my school......and I really liked him so much.......and was such a big fan, when I see his face in my mind's eye it is of him grinning......and in remembering him I remembered a student I had had all those years ago.....she was a great student, a hard worker.....and one day my principal told me that she had a knife on the bus......and I was stunned, there was no way! And it turns out she did, but she told me she was protecting her brother.....he had been getting into some trouble, and she took that knife out of his bag to keep him safe from using it or getting into trouble.....so.....I immediately went to bat for her....knowing the policy was ZERO tolerance and that it meant a pre expulsion hearing.....and he held the line at the time....sticking to the Code of Conduct, and the policy.....and when he brought her in, it touched my heart so, breaking my heart and bringing me to tears for her.....because I knew she didn't mean it.....and that her situation did not fit within that Code of Conduct, that extenuating circumstances were everywhere.........and thankfully she didn't end up being expelled.... so last week I was thinking of her......wondering what came of her.....and yesterday morning I was sitting in my classroom....waiting for another parent to arrive for their conference, and K walked through my door! She said do you remember me?? And I leapt up from my chair and said of course.....I could still see her 4th grade face, living within her grown up face:)......and I gave her a big hug, and we talked for a half an hour.....she was telling me all about how she was telling somebody in her life about me....and how she loved me as her teacher, and how I had cried with her when the bus incident happened.....and how she still thinks of myself and another teacher that retired years ago......and as a teacher we don't always see the impact we have that far down the road....she was in my class when I was pregnant with my son.....but it was so powerful to have her come back to share that with me.....and it touched my heart.....and she had such lovely things to say about me....and her time in my class......and she is doing great, and her life seems wonderful, and I am so proud of her....and thinking of that principal.....I knew his hands were tied.....I totally got that, and his heart was as big as he was for sure.....it was the one and only time there was something like that, where I felt like he locked in....I will have to text him to let him know that I saw her! I am sure he will remember too....life I have learned is a series of circles that we walk.....we often speak about the road....and the roads we travel.....and when one thinks of roads they seem like straight lines.....but in my experience, some of them are not that way at all......they are giant loops that circle us back round to the places we need to be, or touch upon again.....and this felt like that.......it was a beautiful gift I was given to see her again.....Enjoy the day:)