Mrs. Brenda Lewis lived in the same town her entire life – right across the street from the middle school. She had been a widow for almost a decade. Prior to losing Don, her husband, the two had been married for forty-nine years and ten months. Fifty years would always be a sliver away.
People sometimes asked her how she kept going, how she stayed so positive all the time – and after all these years. Her answer was simple: “The children.”
To be clear, Mrs. Lewis never had any children of her own. She wasn’t able to. Her “kids” entered her classroom in September and left in June.
She had hundreds of children, thousands – generations of families that went back and back and back.
On the first day of school – an unusually brisk, September morning – Mrs. Lewis entered the building for the sixty-fifth year in a row. She didn’t know how to explain it to anyone, but she knew it would be her last.
Weeks passed. Months. Her students grew to love her. One morning, she chatted with a handful of her children after the bell. They joked with her about teaching for so many years.
“You know,” she said to them, “there is truly nowhere else I would rather be.”
On a beautiful spring morning, Mrs. Lewis sat at her desk during a prep period. The room was empty, and the windows were wide open. A gentle breeze swept through. Mrs. Lewis closed her eyes, taking it all in. She didn’t know how long she stayed there – completely and utterly still.
Ms. Murray, the math teacher next door, knocked and entered. “Hey, Mrs. Lewis, quick question,” she said, eyeing a piece of paper in her hand. She stepped closer. “Brenda?”
Not only was Mrs. Lewis gone – she was home. An eternal smile rested on her old, wrinkled face.
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Take care, and thanks again.
Sweet. A life well lived.
This is a delightful, heart-warming story.