An Improver

I know it isn't my right to write about the medical and personal lives of my students, but their life stories are a reminder of the Lord's goodness. One in particular has been dealing with health issues since she was a baby and has in the last few years been dealing with cancer. To be honest I'd lived fairly ignorant of the process of cancer until I met her. Staff meetings revealed that she would again have to go for a check up or that a pain in her side would leave her out for the day. And all I could do was imagine it made the girl really tired all the time, and that's as far as I could understand it. 

I'd never known a person with cancer. Not one this close.

I met her as a freshman. She had long brown hair then. When her mother served on our school board, they'd invited me over for steak. They can grill up a good one. I sat salivating over its peppery, juicy tenderness as she told me about her daughter's heart transplant surgery when my student was a baby. And then we played games and my student eagerly chatted about her best friends.

Despite her medical needs through the years, she remains a bright and energetic student now into her senior year. She was fine for a short time into her sophomore year, and then there was news. She would have to go through treatments. They had found various spots. 

That whole year she continued to finish my sophomore English class, declaring often, I might add, that she was not a lover of reading or writing. I smiled though, because she wasn't (and isn't) the type of student to give up when she dislikes the material. She would turn in various poems and responses and even in the summer we'd email and communicate through her tutor. I'm certain that many students would have pushed all the work away, declared that it demanded too much, especially because the amount of attention on her health was substantial. But every due date I gave her, every requirement, every assignment, every quiz--she was always ready and she didn't complain. Not once. 

She went through another round in her junior year, and by that time she was taking Media with me. We decided it wasn't necessary for her so we didn't continue with it. 

This year she has been in school throughout the semester and things are looking good for next semester. In fact, she just went in for another scan and her mind is at ease because the doctors told her the recent pain in her side was just a cracked rib. (Just a cracked rib!) So when she told me this on Friday, I smiled, because for many a cracked rib would be their hardest medical scare to date. And kids her age just don't deal with those things...not typically. 

But I don't find her peers to be ignorant of her situation. They ask her about things, and she tells them, and they pray for her, because what else can they do? They cannot bear her pain, only witness it and try their best to appreciate their own health. 

Because of her I know how I am blessed by God. If he can take a tiny baby and allow medical professionals the ability to transplant a tiny heart and allow this baby to grow up and to be positive and happy and an improver and confident and funny and to share her life story in a chapel time to a hundred other students...if God can allow bravery to come from a small frame of a young woman, then surely he can know your heart (both physical and figurative!).

Tomorrow she presents her Composition portfolio. She has been working hard all semester, and it makes me proud. I always pray that students will see improvement in their writing, not perfection. And she did. 

"Miss Boman," she said, "I really thought I'd hate this class. I'm just not. I'm just not the writing type. But it was good. I learned to like it." And that made me laugh.

When you have a new or an improved lesson and  through discussion, activities, and essential questions the students are so with you that they don't even realize that good learning is taking place. They lean forward, laugh freely, sit pensively, and look you in the eye, and then you know it's working.

When you finish the last stitch to an infinity scarf or a blanket, and you know that many people can't do it like you. Your friends actually appreciate their crocheted gifts and they say "what talent" and even though it's crocheting, you feel adequate. 

When you look loneliness in the figurative eye, greet it as an old friend, and allow it to sit into your world and take up space; whether it leaves or stays you recognize it and choose never to be distressed by it.

When you pop in an old film and you can mouth every word, but remind yourself to be quiet so you can basque in the actors' inflections. 

When you can see your family members accomplishing great feats; their competences are a mystery because to you these people were more common than buttered toast.

When you sit on a wooden pew to ponder the inestimable sacrifice that Christ made so you could find favor with God; when the wine has washed down the bread and you can feel grace in your heart.

When you entreat yourself to keep pushing one foot in front of the other and reach the top of whatever sand dune, hill, or mountain you're climbing and you laugh because its so wild and you're one of a few who are hanging out there and seeing the wildflowers and letting your hair be whipped by the wind.

When you realize after reading something that you're smiling like a dork. When you read a naughty section of a novel while you're in public and try your best not to laugh or show emotion.

When your friends really talk to you.

When your friends crudely joke with you.

When you feel more content to be chubby and functioning than skinny and sick.

When you and your little brother laugh; much ado about nothing.

When your grandma takes you camping and tells you all her stories about being a little girl and hiding in the portapoties to wait while bears left their campsite; when you can see her eyes become distant while her mind rushes back to meet the past.

When you and your friends sit for hours in coffee shops and write on napkins life goals and attempt to woo the waiter only to find out he's happily dating someone and they make a really cute couple anyway.

When you watch people talk passionately about literature and you do everything you can not to interrupt them and talk about your own favorites.

When you feel like you dressed hipster enough to be part of a band.

When you want to sleep but can't because all your thoughts stayed quiet until bedtime and they have to be heard right NOW, and you think, "My word. I should be paid for how productive my mind is being."

When your niece laughs and says your weird first name clear as day and then wants to play. 

When your brother-in-law becomes as good a friend as your own family. When your brother-in-law's family becomes just as close. 

When your favorite dog wiggles his butt because you walked in the door.

When you're grading and instead of writing "Doctors assess" your student writes "Doctors asses" in the middle of a very serious essay.

When you're traveling through the night and you can see the red sunrise peak over the mountain tops.

When you sit and let Mom rub your back. 

When you realize that your childhood stories are totally bankable. 

When you're told you sort of resemble Emma Stone from a certain angle and you kind of act like her, too. 

When you've written something you like.

Searching for Elna

God really spared me from ever publishing something juicy and autobiographical about my late teens and early twenties. Thank goodness I didn't, but Elna Baker did, and I really wish she'd publish something again. She wrote The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance, published a couple follow up articles, and then vanished. I've recently discovered her on Vine, but that doesn't give me much information...just that she has a dog and a boyfriend now and maybe travels? I can't tell. Now that I'm through nearly all the ages she wrote about, I find myself yearning to know more about how she went on. How does one plunge through this life? Maybe she found out that time spent with others matters more than time spent writing about them.