simplistic words

my senior english teacher probably had to be
the best teacher that anyone could ever have.
there was only one due date for all your work.
all your tests were open note and open book.
and the teacher herself was nurturing and like
a second mother to many.

i have never, ever heard anyone say "i hate oxford".

what i loved most about her class was that her
projects were very outside the box, and that
in each project, she found a way to implement
personal elements very discreetly. she forced every
student to discover more of themselves and helped
many of us grow to be better people.

on every project presentation day, she revealed the
purpose of one of the project rules. there was always
one very, very strange rule in each one.

one project showed us how we learn best.
another helped us discover what personality type we have.
another showed us how we prefer to work
or what our discussion preference is.

it was like one giant personality analysis class hidden
behind the english curriculum, yet we all still managed
to learn about Oedipius Rex, Hamlet, Candide, and many
of the other stories.

what i loved most is that she showed us that our parents
are always going to be our number one team mates, despite
what the vast majority of us had thought. she taught us that
we needed to keep them involved, and that if it wasn't a direct
blood line family member, it could even be a surrogate parent
of sorts.

and if you know me well enough, you will know that i have been
fighting to break a chain of mother-daughter hatred in my family.
it has been a tradition for generations upon generations. and if you
know me extremely well, you know that my mom and i have had
a not-so-great history, to say the very least.

for our last assignment, we had to write a tribute letter to our
parents. my dad got a four page letter telling how much i
appreciate how he's been there for me, supported me, and how
i love him for all the risks he has taken just to make me happy
including going behind my mother's back, many a time.

my mom's letter on the other hand, was a twelve page letter, front
and back, where i let go of seventeen years of pain, sorrow, & rage onto simple pieces
of paper. only the last page of the letter thanked her for finally starting
to see the light that i was seeing, and for finally accepting me for who i was.

my english teacher mailed them off to our respected families at their respected
addresses.

two weeks later she hands each of us an envelope and tells us that they are
responses to our letters. from none other than our parents.

i saved mine.

and i love how my mom was the one to write one to me.
she said sorry.
...my mom never tells me that she's sorry.
and she told me that she was willing to
help me break this horrid chain.
it told me how much she actually
regretted everything she ever did to me,
everything she ever put on me,
and everything she had ever said to me.
she told me how she wished she could
heal those invisible scars that she herself
had given me, and knows herself that they
probably will never heal.
and she told me she knew i was ...partying...
to put it kindly, and she told me that God
wouldn't be happy. and that day i stopped.

ever since i was eleven, when i had to endure
a battle that kids should never in their life
have to experience, i became hard and cold.
i didn't cry. i was angry. and a few years later
i fell into a bout of depression.

my mom let me get a new start on life when she
allowed me to transfer high schools.
and this letter finally broke that wall that i had
let myself be surrounded by.
i cried for the first time in a long time that day.
right in the middle of class.
only two of my friends and my english teacher
understood why.

she announced to the class that i was the example
of why she had students write tribute letters.
and with my permission, she read a xerox'd
copy of some of the things i had written to my mom
and what she had written back to me.

those students who were ignorant and made a joke
out of the assignment immediately felt like idiots
when they realized how powerful words could be.

all i can say is, thank you, mrs. b.
you helped me release 17 years of unbearable pain.
and you helped me realize that despite it all, someone
here on earth does love me. and i thank you, for reminding
me on a daily basis that God loves me too.

and ever since that day, simple words of love and adoration
make me tear up. i feel like i am weak now, but i know that
i never want to build a wall around myself like that ever again.