Running off to Florida for Braden's baptism was wonderful and I wouldn't have missed it for anything. But, the downside is that it takes me quite a while to catch up on the grading that builds up while I am gone.
So, Wednesday after school, I planned a grading marathon.
Morosely I stared at the stacks of books when the bell rang at 3:30 and the children left.
Vocabulary books, Greek/Latin workbooks, journal entries, science binders... it was an overwhelming task. I sat down with a grading pen and got to work.
Around 5:00 I looked up as someone walked by my window. That's not too unusual - there are baseball fields next to the school and often in the spring and fall there are games or practices happening. But this person had stopped at my window and was waving at me.
It was Mrs. Smith! I'd had both her daughters, Lauren and Erin, and she is a huge supporter of public education. She began the TSC Save Our Schools campaign, and had had me recognized by the Public Schools Foundation of Tippecanoe County last February.
She'd also attended a fundraiser last Sunday in downtown Lafayette and had again honored me, sending me this picture from the PSFTC Facebook page.
Quickly I went over and opened the window, and discovered that Mrs. Smith was not alone - her daughter Erin was with her. I invited them to come in the building and have a chat.
Erin is now as tall as me!!
Erin told me she had a gift for me and handed me a box. Inside was a lovely pair of origami crane earrings, something she knew I would love because of the crane project we do every other year. But there was a story behind the gift, a big one.
Over the summer, the Smiths had gone to Hawaii and visited the Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes museum. A tribute to Sadako, a real Japanese girl who attempted to fold 1,000 paper cranes while ill with radiation poisoning from the Hiroshima bomb, the story is a part of our class curriculum. It is a moving one, as Sadako dies before accomplishing her task, and her classmates finish it for her in her memory. There is a Sadako memorial in Japan and one in Hawaii.
While in the museum gift shop, the Smiths saw the origami crane earrings and decided to buy them for me as a gift.
Their visit brightened my day and distracted me from my heavy grading load. But even better, I saw the power of a book in action, one that influenced Erin so much that she visited a museum about that book while on vacation and then took a further step of thinking of me and bringing me back a very special gift.
