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To the only person that truly believed in me.

For the Hometown Heroes challenge.

By Sergios SaropoulosPublished 2 years ago 5 min read
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Painting of a teacher, by Moesey Li.

It was a Tuesday's evening, I had already been tired from seven hours of school and I was sitting in a small classroom. It was my tutoring time. This time it was just me and a teacher. Her eyes were black and her eyebrows were thick, painting the whole portrait of her face. Her forehead was full of wrinkles. Wrinkles that I truly perceived as proof of wisdom. Her voice was deep and strong, each word coming out of her mouth felt like a speech. I was looking at her and then the first tear comes out of my eye. But this time I was not crying out of fear or desperation, I was not crying because I was afraid. The tears coming out were tears I never felt before. It was the first time I was crying of admiration, I was crying because it was the first time I felt a sense of responsibility. I could not disappoint her, she was the first person to believe in me.

My first touch with learning came through fear, as a son of a teacher I always had to fulfil roles and expectations I had never asked. The fear of a bad grade was surpassing the fear of any other child. No one knew. No one knew the days and nights of my getting screamed or even worse. I am still wondering, was the fear and the pain of a child worth a failed math test or a mediocre grade in grammar? Luckily the years passed and the punishment became indifference. It seems that my oppressor moved on, time and disappointment allowed me a degree of freedom. There were days, of course, days that I would feel the same pain again. This "freedom" gave me time, time too precious to waste in fear. I started reading and learning, this time what I truly wanted. I started reading history, discovered philosophy and fell in love with the film. I fell in love with the director's gaze of reality. I still remember watching Luc Besson's, The Fifth Element, for the first time and falling in love with Milla Jovovic. Wanting to make my own film, my own dystopia waiting for a revolution.

Time passed quickly and my days of fear returned. My freedom had to be sacrificed for the final exams. I had to get into a University. Studying film was a dream I could not have the courage to uptake, I could not believe in myself and my family would never accept it. But still getting accepted into a University was still a chance of proving myself. To me and everyone else, starting of course as an outsider, a person indifferent to learning school material and only focused on history and politics. In this beginning, I had one more enemy, my oppressor. His realism dictated that I should reconcile with his prediction and follow a mediocre career for mediocre people. Mediocre meaning something that he would not consider worth it, but still, you know, "the child has to do something with his life".

There I was then, The child trying to do something with my life. But she saw through me, I do not know if she did that because she was a true educator or If she noticed something personal in me. I like to believe that she did both. She saw me cry, she clearly saw me. For her it was normal, she did not ask me why I am crying or why I am weak. I was never used to a person so understanding my tears stopped and a bright smile come out of my face. If there is a feeling like hope, this should be it. I could not analyze it more than that. It was a new feeling for me, the next time I would feel this it would be when I was holding the hand of the girl I truly fell in love with. I was loving my teacher, no, not in that way you might imagine, but in a way that a child loves a parent. She was at that moment that parent figure I was looking for. I wish she knew. I wish she felt at that moment, maybe a fragment of my feelings. I wish she looked at me as her child. She looked outside the window, for enough time to wipe my tears and then she turned again. "With this pace, I believe, at the end of the term we will know everything we need". Her words felt like a paradox. I was never used to "we". I was only used to "you". The transition from "you are dissapointing me" to "we will know everything we need", was something that still stays with me. Her face might be blurred during all these years, but these feelings remained with me.

Things ended up as she said, as she promised. But this was not just a promise, it was a promise of belief. Someone finally believed in me, did not pity me or blamed me. And I tryed with all my heart for her and for me, for "us". I truly believed I made her proud. Not only with my grades, but also with my development as a person, her ideology about freedom and solidarity, about equality and striving for justice, stays with me to this day.

I managed to get into one of the best Universities in my country. I proved myself to myself. I stopped caring about others, but her. Her, for some mysterious reason, I could not face easily. I could not say goodbye, I saw her on the last day of tutoring class. She smiled at me and said 'Bravo Sergios! You are a true Cretan Lad". Crete was her island the birthplace of many heroes. After that, I never saw her again. Many people were telling me to talk to her, but to this day I do not understand why I could not see her again. Something was stopping me, something was not allowing me to say that final goodbye one more time. Others advised me to give her a gift. That I could not do either, our relationship was more than that. I still have not seen her from that day. But her face and her voice remain. Remains as the deepest voice of belief and as the kindest human figure I have ever met.

I devote this article to her, even though she never read it.

Sergios Saropoulos

self help
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About the Creator

Sergios Saropoulos

Philosopher, Journalist, Writer.

Found myself in the words of C.P. Cavafy

"And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.

Wise as you will have become, so full of experience, you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean"

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