The Teacher

Today’s prompt: “You are in a department store in another city, and you see one of your teachers weeping. Write the scene.”

Ms. Raeburn has always had fond memories of her first third-grade class, and she’s always kept track of them. So this year has been a particularly hard year for her. Back in January, your classmate Emily’s husband and brother-in-law died in a plane crash. Ms. Raeburn helped organize members of your class to buy flowers for Emily, and she was at the funeral in a plain black dress. She spoke to Emily after the service in consolatory murmurs, and, not knowing how Emily would feel about physical contact with her third-grade teacher decades later, she held her arms open awkwardly for a hug. She felt a moment of relief when Emily collapsed hungrily into her arms, and then a twinge of guilt for thinking so much about her own potential embarrassment. She quickly pushed away both relief and guilt and connected her memory of Emily on the swings at recess, Emily reciting in the spelling bee, Emily making faces at the cafeteria food while sitting with her friends, with the Emily here and now, the grown woman wracked with grief. And then Ms. Raeburn knew exactly what to do, and she and Emily stood and rocked while they both cried.

It was terrible to see one of her students grieving for her husband, but that didn’t quite prepare Ms. Raeburn for when a member of her first class died. Zack was a nurse at an assisted living center. The center tried its best to keep its staff regularly tested for coronavirus, but because of the lag in test results, COVID-19 was already sweeping through the facility by the time the administrators found out about the positive test result. They isolated the residents as quickly as possible, but the wave of COVID killed 40 percent of the residents and two staff members, including Zack. Zack had excelled in science class and made elaborate hand turkeys at Thanksgiving. Ms. Raeburn barely knew what to say to Zack’s parents at the funeral. Parents should never have to bury their sons.

That was months ago, but it still hits Ms. Raeburn now and again. Sometimes she feels cursed – that much tragedy befalling the students from her first class all in one year. So sometimes she’ll be in the middle of a grocery store or a Macy’s and she’ll get a little weepy.

You don’t help matters any when you start walking toward your misty-eyed teacher to ask what’s wrong, ignoring the yellow “Caution – Cuidado” sandwich boards set up on the wet floor that stretches out between you and her, and slip and pull over a display case and crack your head against the floor. The accident leaves you with a fatal cut on your carotid artery, and burns itself into the memory of your third-grade teacher, who had recognized you just as you were falling.