I am still reading simple little words, the book I have mentioned… a few times actually. It is one of those pick-up-occasionally-to-read kind of books. The book talks about the power of our words, and how they can affect others.
I was thinking along those lines recently and an incident from my past just sort of jumped out at me.
I remember it so very well, this day long ago. I was in first grade and so very far from home, or so it seemed, when actually it was less than five miles, though it may as well have been five hundred.
I always felt so alone while at school, especially during recess. We would go outside when the weather cooperated to play group games. There was a big empty field behind our school where we went for recess, and from far away I could easily see the Boone Box logo on the sides of the 18 wheelers as they drove up and down the busy highway in our town. That was the company my dad worked for.
I was never more homesick than on those first few days of my school journey. I had a broken arm when school started, and I was sporting a splint and a bandage. My mother had written a note to the teacher, Mrs. Edrington (yep, I still remember her name), asking her to excuse me from rough activities during recess.
I was standing alone under a big oak tree, watching the class play Red Rover. My elderly teacher-or so she seemed at the time- walked over to where I stood and asked me if I wanted to play the game with the class. I didn’t, and being a shy little girl, simply looked up at her and shook my head no in response. She called me a big baby and strolled away.
I was crushed. My teacher, this woman whom I would spend six hours a day with, five days a week for the better part of a year, had called me a big baby.
That memory has stayed with me for twenty or thirty…okay, for forty-six years! I don’t remember anything else about first grade but this memory remains.
How powerful words can be.
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