Mrs. Warner

  I remember; I wasn’t nervous at all! As a matter of fact, scanning the room and seeing the eyes of 30 students upon me, even those that looked less than enthused to have me standing in the front of their classroom, energized me. I knew, by the time I was done with my presentation, all eyes would be alert and hands would be competing with each other in the air to be called upon. It was in that moment, that private moment within myself that she came to mind, like a ghostly angel hovering over my shoulder. Gosh, if she could see me now, she just wouldn’t believe it. Me, leading an entire class when at one time in my life, the time that I had spent with her, I was just an insecure teenager who felt I had failed at any chance of being able to make it in the adult world.

 When I sat next to her important desk in the virtually empty classroom of the continuation high school; a school for the kids who blew it at the regular high school and were hanging onto a thread of hope to graduate, I listened wide-eyed as she talked to me.  She spoke to me as if  I was the most competent person in the school, never could I have allowed myself to dream that one day I too would be inspiring young students who did not believe in themselves. 

     Mrs. Warner; so regal and so eccentric. Her posture was always straight and tall, even when comfortably leaning back in her desk chair while talking with me. She had that shock of bottle-dyed red hair which paled in comparison to her silky, paisley “moo-moos” she would wear; those long  flowing gowns with the flared sleeves so popular in the 1970’s.  She was always so colorful in looks and personality. I do not know if people realized how physically beautiful she was with her bright blue eyes and movie-star bone structure, but I know that she certainly did not care; her smile and unwavering confidence told me that. She mesmerized my 17-year old self. How did I let myself lose touch with someone who was so pivotal in my life? 

    Mrs Warner, my teacher, who was so much more than just my teacher. She saw me when I couldn’t see myself. She would talk to me about the future, as if I actually had one. This confused me as my own parents always reminded me of how hard things were and how “unrealistic” I was to ever think I could go to college. Besides, my mother had told me that back in her day, if you weren’t married by the time you were 21, you would be considered an “Old Maid” and that going to college would “make you undesirable to a future husband”.  I did not understand this thinking but feared it to be true. In contrast to all I had ever been taught to believe, Mrs. Warner was happily married for 40 years and told me so many exciting stories of how she met her husband in college and how they supported each other until they each graduated before marrying and having a family. She shared with me that she went to college after graduating from college. She called it “graduate school” and said she received her masters in education from it. She had to explain to me the difference in what it meant to get what was called a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree. I had never even heard those terms before. She always asked what I thought I would like to get MY bachelors degree in. When I told her that in my family we didn’t have degrees, she would say to me; “well then, you will be the first!”.  The thought excited me because while getting a college degree was looked upon negatively in my family, my same parents would wistfully talk about our distant relatives who had graduated from Princeton and Brown University and were principals and teachers and were really smart. They, my parents always said, were just “lucky”. The idea that I could ever have such luck only seemed a remote fantasy when I was spending my lunch hours sitting next to Mrs. Warner’s desk; but a remote fantasy was more than I ever allowed myself to have in every other area of my life. Mrs. Warner told me that I had a special gift that my family just couldn’t see. She said it wasn’t their fault, but it was important that I not believe what they were telling me about myself, because it just wasn’t true. She even told me I was pretty. I didn’t think I was. Even though I spent the first 15 of my 17 years dancing ballet, my impeccable posture was hidden by the heaviness of not thinking I was as worthy as others my age. But when I spoke with Mrs. Warner, I naturally sat up straighter and held my head like the dancer I once was. 

     As my student’s began to ask their questions and I answered them, my private thoughts turned to Mrs Warner; how was it we had lost touch? I needed to find out where she was. I feared she must no longer be living and if she was, she would be old now, very old, as she was up in age even then; but I needed to find her, so I could ……”tell” her. I wanted to tell her that she was right. I wanted her to know that I got not only my Bachelors degree but a Master’s degree as well. I wanted her to know that I loved teaching and, like her, because of her, I had a special knack for recognizing and reaching out to the students who, like me, didn’t believe they had a real future. 

     I found Mrs. Warner in the second nursing home that I called. My first glance of her, after 41 years gave me a start, followed by a deep sadness. Her red “Ann Margret” hair was now a silky, brilliant white. Her once spry movements were now carefully orchestrated, in pain perhaps? But it only took me looking up at her walls and the trinkets of a life well-lived  in the small room of the nursing home to see that this woman still did indeed embrace life, if not in a more confined and observatory way. Just being in her room woke the visitor up! On her bedside table was a picture of her and her husband, both with matching white hair and life-lines on their faces and their arms; riding elephants in Thailand. The world map on her wall was infected with red push-pins like a bad case of the measles, representing all of her world travels. One entire wall was dedicated to pictures of family; and in the center of all of them, surrounded by love from young to old, was Mrs. Warner.

     When the nurse “introduced” me to Virginia, the name Mrs. Warner insisted my 17 yr.-old self call her, which always made me feel like she thought of me as an equal, her bright blue eyes looked right at me. My shoulders were ballet straight now and my chin no longer pointed towards the floor. My blond hair was an appropriate shoulder length for my 54 year-old self, and my attire expressed a woman who was a professional and comfortable in her own skin. Virginia said to me simply, “Tell me dear, what degree did you end up with and what wonderful thing have you done in this world?” She wasn’t asking IF, she asked for clarification of which one. I did not not need to “tell” her. She knew. But of course she knew, and of course she would “believe it”. I was wrong. Yet, in my private self now, I understood exactly how she knew, for now I, like her, was a mentor to young people. I could not stop the tear that rolled down my cheek. This moment, this moment was here all along. She had been my driving force. 

     Our conversation was between two adults now. As she spoke and asked me all about my life, my mind was flashing back to the conversations at her desk in the Social Studies class 34 years ago, and I could see now that she was talking to my “adult self” then. Those conversations were engaging and interesting. She would forget herself and laugh sometimes when telling me a story of her youth, as if I were a real friend her age. And she was equally interested in my life, mostly what my hopes and dreams were. Now, it was like we picked up where we left off, only we had a lot more stories to share. She listened so closely when I told her I had raised four daughters before finally finishing college. She asked me what I had told my own girls about college and was visibly pleased when I told her that I supported them in whatever college or career choice they decided on. 

     As I held her soft but loose-skinned hand in mine, we didn’t really look back. That is not who she was. She was still, at 96 years old, looking forward to life..  I shared with her how difficult it was to learn modern technology and how many times the glitches would interrupt my presentations. I told her “I was born in the wrong generation”. “Hogwash!”.... were her words to me. Then she continued on to say,  “There is no right generation, life is forever evolving, and to be a part of it, to really live, you must always be excited about the changes that you are fortunate to be a part of. Look at me now! Just this very day you have taught ME something new! Powerpoint? Google Docs? It sounds fascinating! What an innovative way to communicate!”. As I looked at the sparkle in her eyes and her mouth with a half-open smile, I could see that she really was excited to learn about these new and most mundane tools of the modern world. I found myself smiling as well.

     Two weeks later my mother called me on the phone and said; “Isn’t Virginia Warner that teacher that you liked so well in high school?” When I replied yes, she told me that in the paper today, it said she had died the morning before. I know my mother continued to speak, but I heard nothing. The love that I felt for this most special woman, Mrs. Warner, blocked out all sensation of the present. I needed to be in the stillness of this moment.

      Our visit had been a blessed gift. A parting gift to me, the young student she had unknowingly guided every time I had a dream and was told by others that I “couldn’t”, her words to my 17 year old self, gave me the courage to keep pushing forward. She left me with her legacy to pass on to others. Others that she knew would find me, as I had found her. 

    As a student made his way to my desk, after all the others had left for lunch, I offered a chair and invited him to sit as I offered him water. My sadness at losing my mentor, my friend, was replaced with a smile as I acutely understood the legacy Mrs. Warner had left me with.