To Teachers Past

News reached me today that Mrs. Wilkie, my year six teacher, has died. I don't know the cause and I don't know how old she was, but the news was pretty grounding for me.

Some teachers have the ability to change you. They challenge you and encourage you and introduce you to new worlds that you would have never entered before. It is these teachers that make us who we are and these teachers that will always be remembered. Mrs. Wilkie was the first.

I wonder if I would be sitting here now, doing what I do, if it had not been for her. She encouraged me to act and get into drama, to write, and to read. She lent me her copy of 'The Hobbit'. She managed to be both wise and fun, someone to emulate.

I always imagined that she would be someone I thanked in the first pages of my debut novel. I also really wanted to go back and say "Hey, look where I am now. Thank you." The opportunity to do this has passed me by now, and for that I am disappointed.

You'd think that the death of someone I haven't seen for eleven years wouldn't hit hard, but I find myself mourning her none the less.

Let our thoughts be with her family and all those children who she touched in her many years as a teacher.

Rest in peace.

http://psychedelicmind.deviantart.com/art/Sandman-DEATH-9023195