"Are you even coming back?" Julana spoke, puncturing the uncomfortable silence that had settled over our frantic attempts at staying busy. I could see that her respect for her elders prevented her from pressing me any further, but the hurt and disappointment in her eyes was nearly tangible.
I met her gaze and tried to smile her out of her accusatory question. "You're going to have to talk to Mr. H about that," I replied, then almost whispered, "It doesn't really have anything to do with me anymore."
"How can you say that?" she hissed, still smiling so that any passers by would see a normal conversation between teacher and student, adult and child. "You're his wife! You can't leave!"
"Julana, he'll still be here next year. And you know how it is with adults..." I trailed off, knowing full well that she knew how it was with us adults. The grown ups. Abandoned by her mother for Friday Nights of frolicking about the island, and daughter to a father who barely even knew her name, she was the sole caretaker of her ailing grandmother, alcoholic uncles and handfuls of hungry cousins who ran about the yard, mimicking the chickens and stray dogs they chased in their free time. At 11, she knew exactly how it was with adults. She was one herself. Any trite statement that I could have offered would have not only been an insult to her, but an insult to our relationship.
Julana and I had become acquainted two years prior when I began teaching at her school. Although I was officially the kindergarten teacher, I often found myself surrounded by small groups of the upper elementary girls, as I was good friends with one of their idols, my roommate, who just happened to hold a day job as their 5th grade teacher. Uncomfortable around their giddy confessions, I remained aloof for much of the year, an attitude I found hard to maintain once I became the troop leader for the Junior Girl Scouts. I was up to my elbows in glitter and adolescence.
Julana was the most gregarious of the bunch, although not the most popular, something she struggled with on a daily basis for all the time I was there. Saddled with amazing responsibility and the stress of looming puberty, she fluctuated between little girl (a position she was not allowed at home) and bossy older sister (a position she was forced into at home), both attributes that the other, more well adjusted girls were annoyed and inconvenienced by.
Our relationship was solidifed as I watched her through those horribly difficult years, lending a listening ear when she felt isolated, secretly supplying her with things that young girls need, and simply having an open door for her to walk through at the end of any given day. I empathized with the pressure she felt to fit in at school and the pressure to hold everything together at home.
As one-sided as our friendship may have seemed to outsiders, my support for her was merely emotional and minorly financial. Providing her with deodorant and lotion was a small monetary price to pay for what I learned from her and the rest of the students at that school.
Before I began working there, I was stilted, jaded and grieving for a loss in my life. Working with children rid me of all self-absorbed airs I clung to and slapped me in the face with a healthy dose of reality. It was precisely because of Julana and her rosy cheeked counterparts that I forgot I was focusing on making myself so miserable. I stopped taking myself so seriously and began taking stock in the little moments. The Every Day.
Even the kids noticed a change. "Teacher," they'd say, pulling on my hand or stroking my hair with their sticky fingers, "You're different." "Oh yeah?" I'd counter, "Why?" "You're more funny! You laugh!" they'd point out as we'd walk to recess or the cafeteria or just anywhere together. And I believed them.
As I waited for Julana's next words, I recognized that she saw those last few years between us and the differences, too. It was at that precise moment that I saw exactly how intuitive she and all my students were. I realized that no matter how much I thought that I was the adult, it was really all of them, teaching me. In my quest to put food on the table, I had been educated, and I knew she knew this too.
As I wondered just how much I would have the opportunity to learn from them, Julana opened my door and motioned for me to get in, an unusually adult gesture for her 11 years. "You don't have to say anything," she allowed, "Just make sure that you come back." "I will," I promised. "Before you know it."
Readying myself to go into 2005, it is difficult for me to admit that I have not made it back to Julana or A.J. or AnnaLynn or any of the others. What I will admit, and even readily, is that it is precisely these kinds of relationships that have kept me teaching and steadily pursuing higher education.
There is something equally sobering and uplifting about the unconditional love of a child. It is that which I am thankful for this Christmas.