Dear Mrs. Howard

Mrs. Howard.

I seriously doubt that the world ever got around to appreciating teachers, especially the ones who save lives. In my case, a six-figure salary would never have been enough for the place you took in my life when I was devoid of a mother.

I wasn't an orphan, but I was.

There I was taking that long walk down the hallway as if it was my Last Mile on Death Row. My life was spiraling out of control and the possibility of my being a real 16-year old was slim to none.

You never knew that I had a mother who laughed at me hysterically when I showed her my straight-A's in fourth grade, and you never knew that my mother told me I wasn't "good enough" to be friends with the girl who I attended church with ... especially when I went to her house on invitation to spend the weekend with her and her family. It was strikingly wondrous to me how families were actually supposed to work, especially since I did not have one. Not one like that anyway.

These people played together, laughed together, loved one another and spent time together. They set the table for dinner, talked about their day at the dinner table, helped each other, planned meals and cooked together, discussed what they learned in Sunday school after church and they all took care of family Peek-a-Poo after they said goodbye to the German shepherd.

What you did know is what I told you about how my mother -the same one who never came to a PTA meeting- nearly broke her neck running to the school to sign my permissions for me to drop out of high school. She told me I would never amount to anything, and I believed her. She certainly made it easier for me to do just that.

It was that year, the one where we had recently merged with a white school when our Black school was closed down after forced busing made integration all about the significant others over us. Yes, race riots broke out because we no more wanted to go to school with them than they wanted to go to school with us, but for them to ditch our history like it was nothing because Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lost his life for no reason ... that was hurtful and depressing.

Forget learning. At the point that he died and our lives as Black students were subordinated because of it, getting a high school diploma and going to college was entirely meaningless. We didn't need to be educated to learn how to be lifelong slaves...we were already good at it.

***

My mother seemed all too eager to prove that her life's tragedy would become my own truth, and it began when her refusal to care what happened to me became my own self-fulfilling prophecy.

So, at the age of 16, I decided to drop out of high school. What was the point of staying?

Yet ... I will never forget how you refused to sign my paper showing that I turned in my English book and how you demanded that I go see all my other teachers first.

I had never been a disobedient child, though. If an adult told me to do something, it was as good as done--no questions asked.

All of my other teachers were white. They asked no questions, didn't even look at me and ask why I was dropping out. Just signed off on the principal's document and waved me off and returned to their business.

When it was time for me to return to you, I did.

But you still refused to sign it and made me sit in your class until it was time to dismiss them, saying you would sign it after class was over. You made sure I stayed there the rest of the day, meanwhile having a few "loud" discussions with other teachers in between classes.

At day's end, you finally threw your hands up...exhausted...and signed it even though I could tell you didn't want to.

I took the paper to the office, handed it to the vice principal, and walked that Last Mile to my locker to remove my combination padlock and my personal belongings so I could go ... where? I had no clue where I was going once I left that school building.

As I was taking out my jacket, I could hear distinctive footsteps coming down that hallway, but I didn't bother to look up. I was just trying to hustle and get out the door before I had time to think about what I was doing, but the moment I closed the locker door, I felt your hands on the collar of my dress...quickly twisting and turning me to face you when you looked in my face and yelled "Why are you quitting school? Are you pregnant?"

I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head.

No, of course not. I'd never been anywhere near the slightest possibility of being impregnated, hadn't really even thought about it.

"Well, I don't understand then. I mean I could kind of understand this if you were pregnant, but this I don't understand at all!"

I finally broke down and cried out "My mother doesn't care, why should I?"

You took your hands off my collar and let me go, but you looked at me --entirely enraged.

"You mother?! You know what? I don't mean any disrespect at all when I say this, but F U C K your mother! This is YOUR life!, not hers. What are you going to do out there."

I did not respond because I had no answer.

"I will tell you what you are going to do. You're going to die out there! That's what. I'm a Black woman with a college degree and I am struggling! What is going to happen to you without even a high school diploma?! You're going to die out there!"

I could not speak. I had no answers, but I knew I couldn't stay. It was done.

You finally calmed down a bit.

"Listen, I will make you a deal. You take a week off, this next week...and if you come back here next on Monday the week after, I will make sure you get back in school and we will get you caught up and as far as I'm concerned, you never left. Can you make me this promise? That you will at least think about it?"

I nodded yes even though I knew I was lying.

I had no intention of coming back. I cared nothing for that school and you were the only exception. My English classes were all there was, and you knew it because it was the only place I paid attention and got excited about classes. The rest were all a waste of time anyway.

I spent the next year feeling every bit of "not good enough" and the only job offer I got was a solicitation from a man who owned a record store who was at least 20 years my senior. He wanted a part-time young 'side piece' for the low low price of $3.10 an hour and his wife didn't need to know, so he said.

I missed my sophomore year, but by the time I would have been in my junior year, I had to go to summer school to make up for the classes I missed; but I tell you what ... the only reason I came back is because of the look on your face and the sound of your voice.

The following year I dropped back in and never looked back.

I'm proud to hold in my hand an honorary doctorate degree for lifetime accomplishments and a ministerial license that had allowed me to make a difference in the lives of others, even though I never needed paperwork to do that.

I was going to do it anyway. That's who I was and I have no doubt about the Enemy's efforts to use my mother to throw acid on it.

Impact matters, and I've had plenty of it for others just because someone had a huge impact on me.

Mrs. Howard ... to this day, I can still see that look of sadness and I can still hear the sound of quiet desperation in the voice that yelled "You will die out there!"

I nearly did.

You were the only one who could see it and the only one who cared. If I had Bezos-Money, it would not be enough to say how grateful I am that you are the only one who cared. There's no price on it. Maybe that's why they underpay teachers, there isn't a price on Earth that could cover what it costs to educate us and keep us alive.

Maybe you still remember me and maybe you don't. Maybe you lost other students to those streets since the last time I saw you.

But I'm glad it wasn't me.

Over, above and beyond my own mother who gave me physical life-my connection to her began and ended at the umbilical cord-but you will always mean the world to me.

I can't change that. I wouldn't change it if I could. Smooth sailing. #2Sweet2B4Gotten

"s"

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