Send My Love To Your New Lover

Send my love to your new lover, treat her better, we’ve gotta let go of all of our ghosts, we both know we ain’t kids no more.

Remember that event I told you about?  Well the event was actually a person, and you’re about to hear all about her.  Here goes nothing.

I was at my cousin’s graduation from Jamestown High School on Saturday, when I realized one of my favorite English teachers, Mrs. Wilson, had left.  I didn’t show it on my face, I didn’t have a gigantic outburst, but I was upset.  Really upset.  This is going to sound super cheesy and cliché, but she changed my life.  Going into high school, I didn’t really care for English.  All I ever did in elementary school was label sentences with parts of speech, and although I was decent at it, I found it super boring.  It seemed useless.  Once I realized that English after elementary school would involve reading, my ears perked up; if you know this blog at all, you know I love to read.

It was clear early on that Mrs. Wilson’s class was going to be my favorite class during my second semester of freshman year.  Not to say I didn’t like my other classes, but there was something about English that had me looking forward to third period all day, every day.  One of the first things I remember thinking in that class was She’s an older version of me.  Because she was just as nerdy, if you will, as I was, Mrs. Wilson let the cat out of the bag.  That is, she helped me embrace my love of reading.  I’d always loved to read, of course, but I had been shying away from getting excited about it, because I thought if I got too excited, people would start to think I was weird.  She brought my excitement back.

There was one time I will never forget.  We had to write our final essay during class.  I had made progress on it, but I didn’t get to finish before class ended.  I gave Mrs. Wilson my flash drive anyway; it would be worse if I didn’t turn it in.  So I went to my fourth period: band.  A little while later, there was a knock on the band room door.  It was none other than Mrs. Wilson, asking if she could talk to me for a minute.  So, I followed her out into the hallway, wondering what the heck this conversation could be about.

Even though I knew I probably wasn’t, the first thing I said was “Am I in trouble?”  She said, “No!  I just wanted to tell you your essay was really good.  I’m going to let you finish it.  It’s the best thing you’ve done all semester.”   All I could stammer in reply was “Thank you”.

Back in the band room, I was on top of the world.  It was the biggest compliment I had ever received.  Coming from someone I cared about, it meant a lot.

  All I can say now is that I miss her, and whatever she’s up to now, I hope Mrs. Wilson has it good.  I wish her the best.