The Homecoming

21 June 2024

Dear Mr. Kettering,

You were right, after all. Despite the soliloquy I declared in front of you after my graduation ceremony two decades ago, the one where I used such choice adverbs such as “never” and “begrudgingly”, your little bit of ribbing predicted me grabbing my suitcase and filling it with the most superlative of my clothing in my closet. It’s true: I, Nellie Perkins-Todd, am flying off from London for a two-week visit to Homer, Louisiana. Technically, you could say that I’m coming home, much like Odysseus did in the epic. However, you know very well that….

Oh, I could hear your booming voice reverberating around the classroom walls already, make out your hearty chuckle thump as loudly as the bass drum from a marching band. What can I say? If there’s anyone who can summon me back to the tiny, sleepy hamlet I spent my adolescence in, Agamemnon to the Greek army, it’s you, only you. Just so you know, you’re the teacher whose fond memories of I’ve always carried with me and who I will always reminisce about even as time and the future march on, always progressive.

I can even recall your favorite verb. Oh, you know which one. Of all the words for action, there has only been one which you have uttered to generations upon generations of bleary-eyed pupils, that particular locution that may as well be the prefix of every single sentence you proclaim in front of the blackboard. Yes, I still remember you asking us all to, well, remember.

Oh, you’re laughing again, aren’t you? Yes, Mr. Kettering, your little edicts of “Remember to consider the motivation of the antagonist”, “Remember not to misplace your modifiers,” and “Remember me after getting your diploma” have always been as indelible in my mind as ink on paper. Even these days, as I sit behind a news desk on the other shore of the Atlantic waiting for the cameras to roll, I still beam whenever I remember these admonitions. Just before I address a nation I wasn’t born in, --- a much easier endeavor than standing before the mocking faces of classmates and giving a speech, by the way --- it is these little invitations to retain all you’ve taught that rings in my head like a bell.

So now, I ask you, my favorite instructor, the one I always allude to when people want to know who has been my Mentor, to, as the idiom says, practice what you preach. If it’s okay with you, I’d like you to remember along with me.

Remember how afraid I was when I first walked through the doors of Room 301. I had just moved to Homer, my Coke bottle glasses, New York accent, and father that walked out the door to be with his colleague making everything I was dissonant with the simple, very religious fabric of the community. I could tell from the way the entire student body jeered at me when I passed by in the hallways and broke my spectacles that everyone saw me as simply compounding the perfect present state of the school hierarchy. However, when you asked me to stay behind after the period was over, all you did was try to get to know me, pose questions that were friendly and not interrogative. You told me to remember how delightful it was that you were teaching me. For the first time in a while, I fully believed it.

Remember how brightly you smiled when you handed me back my first essay as your pupil. We had been discussing “The Odyssey” then, and I wrote an impassioned piece about Penelope’s fidelity to her husband. I must admit that whilst I was composing that paper, I felt as if I were inscribing my magnum opus. Well, perhaps, that passion personified itself and bellowed from the page because the next thing I knew, you’d asked me to stay behind, closed the door, and practically spouted out an ode to my assignment. You had no idea then, but inside me, I sensed a nugget of pride rise in me, as if I were a hero being lauded in the streets of Ithaca. You told me to remember to keep writing, to hone my craft so I too could create something epic. For the first time in a while, I fully believed in me.

Remember when you found my tears flowing from my eyes like the Mediterranean’s waves as I sat trembling in the library. Just fifteen minutes before, the popular clique had just surrounded me in the hallway, tore the legal sheet bearing a poem I wrote, and taunted me about my father starting a new family with the woman he left my mother for --- my Achilles’ heel topic of conversation. If I recall correctly, you were only supposed to return a copy of Strunk and White’s “The Elements of Style” to the shelves and return to the faculty lounge. You were compelled to sit down and listen to me, however, chose not to be passive in the face of someone actively crying. You told me to remember how emphatic you were that one day, all the discourse I’d receive is lauds; you asked me to let the praises soak in me like pigment on papyrus. For the first time in a while, I fully believed in them.

Remember when you celebrated with me when I found out I got into Cambridge’s competitive English Honors program, the very same degree that you went on an entire odyssey for me to get application forms for. I’d actually gotten the letter from England in my apartment’s mailbox, but I wanted you to join me in opening the correspondence that would dictate my futur proche. “Admitted”, it was just one adjective to modify me, and yet, all the hyperboles could not encapsulate the intensity of the elation bubbling out of me…of you. You hugged me and declared that I was now the protagonist of my own story. You reassured me that you had no doubt that the dénouement of the novel of my life would be full of promise. You told me, though, to remember how much you will miss me once I’m in the UK. For the first time in a while, I fully believed in someone: you.

Most of all, Mr. Kettering, I want you to remember how much I love you and I’ve never once let the mark of your inspiration in my heart be blotted away. I want you to fully believe me when I say that.

I’ll see you as soon as I arrive in town. Andrew can’t wait to say hello to you again; it’s been a while since you came to our wedding three years ago, after all. Oh, and yes, just so you know, I am bringing a copy of “The Odyssey” for me to read on the plane. I’m sure you would be pleased with that.

Always grateful to her Mentor,

Nellie

***

I fold the letter I’d just recently penned --- the one I want him to read in .... --- and put it in a pristine white envelope, which I place in a hard plastic case inside my suitcase. As my thoughts cycle like a whirlpool on a wine-dark sea, I sense a flood of tears escaping from my eyes.

“Sweetheart, it’s okay,” Andrew coos, his muscular arms, warm voice, and Received Pronunciation accent enveloping me. “You’re safe with me.”

He rubs my delicate hand in circles as we both glance down a tear-stained copy of The Guardian-Journal. On the page are words that plunged an invisible sword into my heart since I first saw it over breakfast yesterday.

In loving memory of

Robin James Kettering

May 5, 1957- June 18, 2024

“There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep.”

Funeral service will be performed at the First Baptist Church in Homer, Louisiana on June 24, 2024

My eyes dance away from the newsprint as every single memory I’ve kept of the instructor that rewrote my future swirls in my head. Of all the things that are difficult to do right now, it’s remem…

“I brought you a coffee, sweetheart. Maybe, that would help,” my husband states, setting my favorite cup in front of me. Instantly, I feel a thousand ships of gratitude launch in my heart.

“You know something?”

“What’s that, sweetheart?”

“At least, Mr. Kettering got to know you. At least, he knows I’ve found a home.”