As Close as a Star to the Moon

Mrs. McMillan was obsessed with The Great Gatsby. She read it at least twice every year: once in the summer, and once at Christmas, from her old taped-together paperback copy she got when she was a student at Our Lady of Lourdes herself.

Her eleventh and twelfth grade English honors classroom was a veritable shrine to Fitzgerald. There were the usual posters with quotes and drawings, but there were also doorknobs from his house, a letter from his nephew, a copy of the book in twenty-three languages, and–the crowning jewel of the collection–a green light, the kind that might have been placed on a ship, or on the Daisy Buchanan's very dock. It was a lantern, old and rusty at the top and bottom, with a textured green glass globe in between. Mrs. M's husband had found it at an estate sale in New York, and she believed against many naysaying high school seniors that this was the very light that Fitzgerald wrote into his masterpiece.

Gatsby was reserved for the twelfth graders at Our Lady. Mrs. M fought hard for this. She wanted her students to be at the highest possible level so that they could really take it in, digest it, understand its symbolism. To her, it was the crowning jewel of the high school experience. The students were allowed to keep the books, and she wrote a personal note in every one before they graduated.

I didn't like The Great Gatsby that much. Or at least, not as much as Mrs. M did–not that this was a difficult feat. I enjoyed Nick as a narrator and the setting of the story, but I just didn't quite get what all the fuss was about. Maybe I'll return to it one day, and I'll appreciate it more; maybe more time needs to go by between readings. For now, I just have a vague memory of a sad story of emptiness and the recollection of the green light, Mrs. M's breathless reading aloud to the class, and the note she left me on the first page.

I didn't read the note right away. I don't know why. I think I just got caught up in the drama of the end of the year, the weird sense of a phase of life coming to an end. I wasn't particularly sad about the end of high school, but I wasn't particularly thrilled about college, either. I went to a little four-year school in the middle of nowhere in Ohio, which was pleasant at first, but then, as winter after approached, became progressively more depressing, the thick cotton-ball clouds hanging low over the world, closing me in.

I don't know why I brought my copy of The Great Gatsby with me, other than the fact that it was a fitting memento of Our Lady of Lourdes, my high school days, a comfortable time. I flipped through it one dull February afternoon, feeling listless and lonely, and was almost surprised to see Mrs. M's note there.

Caroline—

Congratulations! I am so proud of you. You have grown so much over the last four years. Although I know this was not your favorite book, I hope you always remember our afternoon class and the friendships you formed there, and the green light of hope and resilience that lives within you. Never let it burn out.

Don't be a stranger.

All the best,

Mrs. M

I reread it, running my finger over the evenly spaced words, written in thin black ink. I read it again. I had gone home for Christmas, and didn't even think of going to visit her. She had been my favorite teacher, and I should have kept in touch. But it seemed odd somehow to go back to a place where a chapter of my life had closed, after so much had changed in such a short time. I had new friends now, was entering a different stage now. But maybe it would be good to reconnect.

I resolved to get in touch the next time I was there. I had a break coming up in March–I'd see her then. All I would have to do would be to survive the oppressive gray days, the mild cold and the bare matchstick trees.

I'd never get the chance to thank her for the note. The pandemic struck the week before spring break, and the college sent everybody home. Stuck in my house with my family, I emailed Mrs. M: I was hoping to be able to see you! I'm sorry I haven't been in touch. Maybe when it gets warmer we could have a socially distanced picnic? -Caroline

She didn't respond. I assumed she was busy, but through the grapevine of my high school friends I found out what had happened. Mrs. M had contracted the virus. At first it wasn't bad, just a little cough and a fever. But it never got better, and she couldn't catch her breath. She was in the hospital on a ventilator now, fighting for her life.

I thought a lot about her twelfth grade honors English class that spring. It was always right after lunch: a sleepy, happy time of day. I made some good friends in that class. I loved it when she read to us like elementary kids and when we got into intense debates about a book. I loved it when she turned off the overhead lights and showed us movies and YouTube videos about literary devices and scenes from Shakespeare. She would always keep that green light on in the corner of the room, like a reminder of the point of it all: to keep the fire lit.

The governor of our state gave a talk every day during the first months of the pandemic. In the broadcasts, he read the number of people sick and the number who had died. He also encouraged people to put green lights out in the front of their houses. It's a symbol of compassion and resilience, he said. It will remind us that we're in this together, and we will make it through.

The administration at Our Lady of Lourdes sent out a mass email to students and alumni about Mrs. M. They invited us to join a group in bringing Mrs. M's green light from her classroom to the front porch of her house, where it would stay lit until her return: a symbol of hope, never burning out.

A massive group turned up on that April evening. There were students from my class, from the years above and below us, current students who looked so young, and former students in their forties and fifties. Many of us had brought our copies of Gatsby with their notes from Mrs. M on the front pages. Her house was close to the school, so we would walk the light there.

The principal held the green light up, and we applauded. There were prayers and conversation, catching up and introductions. Then we walked–past the front doors and sweeping sandstone entrance steps of the school, across the street, and three blocks south to the house where Mr. McMillan was waiting on the front steps, hands clasped, with tears brimming in his eyes.

The principal walked up to the front porch and handed him the light, which he plugged into an extension cord. The familiar green glow emanated from the stoop, landing on Mr. M's silvery beard, making him look almost otherworldly in the dusk. He thanked us for coming.

I don't know if this was planned, or if it just seemed like the right response to the moment, but one by one, the former students began reading their notes in their copies of Gatsby out loud. There were themes among them: Mrs. M being proud of all of us, congratulating us on our graduation. For the most part, though, they were all unique. She had commented on our strengths, on what we brought to the class, on how we had improved and what she hoped for us. The world blurred as I looked at her handwriting in my copy, as I read my note aloud, thought of how many of us she had touched on her brilliant path through this world.

Mrs. McMillan died a month after that. She was conscious long enough for Mr. M to tell her about the light, about all people who had come and read her notes. He couldn't be totally sure, but he thought he saw her smiling. He still keeps the green light lit on their front porch.

I'm an English teacher now. Not at Our Lady–in a state out west. But I keep the tradition going anyway. The Great Gatsby still isn't my favorite book, but I have grown to appreciate it and what it achieves, its palpable sense of loss and longing and emptiness, the warning against a life of excess, and the importance of striving towards something. I teach it to twelfth graders. They seem so much younger than I was at that age, so full of life and everything it holds in store for them.

I found a green starboard ship lantern at an antique shop in Texas a couple of years ago. It wasn't the same as Mrs. M's–it's a little smaller, in a bit better condition. I keep it on the corner of my desk, always lit. I see Mrs. M when I look at it. She is far away from this world now, like the space between a star and the moon. But in the green glow of that lantern, she is right there with me, reminding me of my power to go on.