Oh Captain My Captain.

How do I start this?  This tribute of sorts?

I once had a teacher - an educator - of epic proportions.  She was both terrifying and awe inspiring.  She commanded respect, perhaps by throwing chalk at a talking face when she was trying to teach.  She rarely connected...but my guess is that may have been intentional.  She was well put together - scarf, shoes, belt, purse - an attention to detail not common in a lady spending her days among grade five and six students.  

I once watched her discipline and comfort a student all in the same hour, rarely holding anger and using experience as lessons that were unforgettable.  She had a wildly infectious laugh.  If I close my eyes I can hear it to this day, and see her smile as wide as the sun on a summer day.  I can hear her heals clicking down a hallway, I can see the sway of her swagger, coffee cup in hand, lipstick on, sass on her sleeve.  She was the teacher that traded Christmas classroom traditions for Halloween and Valentines Day for St. Patrick's Day. I will never again look at a dollar store pencil with plastic leprechauns on the end without seeing her smile.  I can't ever think about telling a ghost story without all the classroom lights being turned out in my head.  Valentines Day?  Blech...  (I may have just discovered where my distaste for it started!)  And even though we traded Halloween for Christmas, there was no other teacher that commanded such enthusiasm during Come On Ring Those Bells.  I see her in front of me every single time I hear it.  

Her desk was lined with little glass and brass bells.  She had a picture of Paul Coffee on the side table pullout in her desk.  She swooned over Craig Simpson, and was probably the only woman short of my mother that I knew at that age that watched hockey with passion and would think nothing of wagering chocolate with a sixth grader on the outcome of the game. She was the teacher who hated rows of desks and rearranged the seating plan regularly.  We sat in groups, or in pairs, or in communities.  Some sat alone.  Some lined her desk with their own, some in a back corner.  We had doodle papers covering the tops of our desks, and we all divided our scribbler pages in half to make the most of the paper when taking notes.  "Take out your ruler.  Put it in the middle of the page. Now draw a line.  I want you to use the whole page."  Waste of space equalled waste of energy.  An unkept desk was unacceptable.  She was very specific.  There were ways of gluing in handouts, ways of tidying a torn out page from a scribbler - there were no stray papers floating about.  She was good at tying up loose ends.  

And so she did.  She fell ill, and didn't make a fuss.  She didn't tell the world, or splash social media with her journey's end.  She stared it in the face, filled her days with her people.  She said her goodbyes neatly and lovingly, and slipped quietly away, at the end of the first day of classes (of course) requesting no egg salad sob fest.  Instead, last week, a group of her biggest fans gathered in a room and told stories. We listened and laughed and cried.  There were people I hugged that I haven't seen in twenty years.  We were all there carrying her love around.  We looked at her smiling in pictures, and running our fingers over her wool scarf displayed just so at the memory table.  It smelled just like her.  There were candles lit, and apples to share from her tree.  It was lovely and sad, and comforting.  

Rita Steele was one of the most powerful educators in my childhood.  Part of me is her, and I'd like to think it's more than the just the half hand writing, half printing habit I picked up in grade five and was scolded for most of my high school english class by Mr. Matheson.  I carry her sass.  Sometimes I catch myself with her swagger when I am feeling just so.  I am grateful for all of it.  

Here's the rub of it all.  I heard a lot of "I wish I could have been there, but..."  I'd like to think, that when my time here ends, and it's the day of my service, the people that loved me, or those of whom who's life I touched in a memorable way come out and embrace each other and stand soul to soul.  I hope more people than not aren't too busy. I hope more people don't only "wish they could have made it" to say good bye.  That day... that day of such sweet good bye deserves more than "I wish I could have been there".  Because you can be, for the most part.  I drove ten hours to hold space for an hour for a person that shaped me.  And I know Rita would say "well lucky me", while twirling the hair on the my shoulders, and saying "not everyone sees importance in such things, but I'm glad you were here".  

Dear friends, stop being too busy for things you wish you could do.  This lesson was brought to you by the letters R and S, and with love.  Ring a bell today, and smile because you can.

"O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,

The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won..."