Missing You

Dear You,

As a school teacher I often was greeted at my classroom door by a student who had missed class the previous day. "Did I miss anything?" Sometimes I laughingly responded that, because s/he was absent, we had decided to do nothing that day, so the answer was "No, you didn't miss anything at all." If I had a couple of extra moments, however, my customary answer was more serious, and I explained that whatever s/he had missed, it was far less important than what the rest of us had missed -- "You."

I would explain that a class was the sum of its parts, not just whatever was in my lesson plan for that day. And if anyone was missing, the sum was diminished. So often, a student would ask a question or offer an opinion, and the entire lesson turned a different corner . . . many times to a surprising and remarkable place. I learned to watch for such opportunities.

It seems to me that it's what happens when someone goes missing from my life. Whatever a day might hold for me, it will be less than it was. An easy example is what my parents might still be teaching me if they had been granted longer lives. If one of the purposes is, as I believe, to continue learning, the loss of every potential teacher is profound. I am now old enough to know when I am diminished . . . and why.