Skip to main content

My Friend

"Isn't it 'la bandera'?" I asked. "Si, 'la bandera." It was my third year of teaching and I was studying to take a Spanish-language test soon. I had asked a friend, our school's custodian, to teach me a new word each day. I looked for help wherever I could get it because passing this test meant a lot to me.

Always friendly, even in low spirits, my friend would enter my room after school each day to throw out trash and clean tables. Even in those moments of sadness, one felt a kindness beaming from her that led naturally to sympathy.

It wasn't as though she often felt sadness. Indeed, there poured from her heart an unflagging love for her God and her children that often gave me pause on days when I battled with my own students for their behavior in the latter part of the school year.

Enthusiastic in her work and gregarious all the while, my friend was known for being the best at her job, and proud of that reputation; but a few years ago, this friend learned that she had cancer. Grounded in her understanding of what this could mean, she nonetheless held fast to her faith in her Creator and was, indeed, an example of unrelenting trust to me when trust would be difficult at best.

Equally astounding was her attitude toward those she loved. While it would be both understandable and expected to invest one's attention in one's own future, it surprised me to see that this friend instead showed concern about the future of her grandchildren. "I'm sad that they won't have a grandmother around," she said.

This is the person who showed kindness to me in my first year of teaching on days when I left school at 9:00 at night, telling me it would get better and giving me examples of past teachers who began leaving earlier as they continued their careers. This was the person whom many teachers requested for her hard work and thoroughness at cleaning; and this was the person who has witnessed a cadre of relatives, friends, and teachers stream into her home week after week to comfort her after learning the doctors could do nothing more to treat the cancer.

Even in the sunset of her life, her spirit continues to enrich the lives of those around her. Indeed, she is an example to us of both faith and love, and I am proud to call her my friend.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Nice Guy Fallacy

I read part of a poem recently by one of my favorite poets. It reads: I envy not in any moods The captive void of noble rage The linnet born within the cage That never knew the summer woods. I envy not the beast that takes His license in the field of time Unfetter'd by the sense of crime To whom a conscience never wakes. Nor what may call itself as bles't The heart that never plighted troth But stagnates in the weeds of sloth Nor any want-begotten rest. I hold it true, whate'er befall I feel it, when I sorrow most 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all. At base, Tennyson contrasted a life of risk, and consequent pain, with one of security. He sides conclusively with the life of risk, and says he fails to envy those who have faced no hardship. I agree with him; and, for good or ill, his words are just as relevant today as they were in the nineteenth century. Like then, there are those today who choose to live their lives with as little risk as...

Persuasion

At different points in history, governments have devoted men, women, and resources to try to persuade others to their side. One significant example of this occurred in Germany under Adolf Hitler. Hitler knew how important it was to make sure the German people were on his side as leader of the country. One way he did this was by controlling what people heard. Specifically, near the beginning of World War II, Hitler made it a crime for anyone in Germany to listen to foreign radio broadcasts. These were called the “extraordinary radio measures.” He did this to ensure that Germans weren’t being persuaded by enemy countries to question their loyalty to Hitler. He knew that a German listening to a radio broadcast from Britain might persuade that German to believe that Great Britain was the good guy and Hitler the bad guy. This was so important, in fact, that two people in Germany were actually executed because they had either listened to or planned to listen to a foreign radio broadcast (one...

Experiment

My social studies students and I are studying Islam right now. The other day, we were reading about one of the Five Pillars, zakat (charity in Islam that means "that which purifies"). Muslims believe that giving away money helps to purify it and also "safeguards [them] against miserliness" (1). I asked the class if this was true, that giving money away makes us less greedy. They generally agreed that it does. I wanted to test whether or not they really believed this, so I handed a volunteer a $10 bill. I told the class that I would ask for the bill back the next day. I said that they should pass the bill around among their classmates, and that as a result, there would be no way for me to know who had the bill. For that reason, whoever wanted to keep the money could keep it. Even if I did learn who kept it, I told them, I would not punish that person. I wanted them to be motivated by their own honesty. The next day, I asked for the bill, and a student handed it to me...