Making a Mark

Hello, everyone! This picture is me, about 65 pounds heavier. Unfortunately, no recent pics of me are good enough to be putting on the internet... :) So that will have to wait for another time!

Now on to my Early Childhood Chronicles...

How many of you have ever read The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds? This book should be read in every "first day" of whatever, rather it is a job orientation, first day of class, or first day of having your driver's license. The book is about a little girl named Vashti who deeply believes she can't draw. Her teacher lets her know to just make a dot and see where it leads her, or as Reynolds said "make your mark". That one dot, that one small act, that one push she found inside herself to defeat her fear and lack of confidence, changed her entire life. On the first day of work as a teacher in the then Memphis City School District, my principal read this book to us. It inspired me because everything great in life happens when we take that one small step, draw that one dot, and the picture of our life will begin to unfold. Every person, especially children, should feel that triumph of making their mark and seeing the rest of their pictures become a reality.

As a teacher, I have had many children touch my lives. There is one particular child that became a part of me more than any of my others. She wasn't in my class; she actually was a teen that I mentored. Her home life wasn't the best--the relationship she had with her mother was slim to none. Her mother had been a teen mother, and so she treated her daughter with negative restrictions, I'm assuming in hopes that the past didn't recur. It caused my mentee to be depressed, suicidal, and she even became a cutter. She would call me and text me just so that I could give her encouragement. One night, I'll never forget, she sent me a photo of her arm. She'd used a razor blade and cut the word hate into her arm. I called her and we cried on the phone while I listened to what was going on and I prayed on the phone with her. She ended up talking to her mother, after I threatened to talk to her myself, and things have since gotten better. She's now in college and trying to make a life for herself. I'm not sure how her present relationship is with her mother, but I do know that I thank God that she saw something in me that allowed her to find a lifeline.