Coming Home

After Emma died, Sarah got a lovely note from her science teacher, a teacher who had also had Emma. In it she enclosed a gold and silver butterfly brooch. She explained that Emma had bought that pin for her as a gift during a seventh grade trip to Boston. Emma had presented her with the pin at the end of the trip and thanked her for being such a great chaperone and teacher. She said that she had been so touched by this gesture. In all her years of teaching, she never had a student do that before. She said that as much as she treasured that butterfly, she thought it was time for the butterfly to fly home to us.

Several weeks later, one of Emma’s high school French teachers asked if he could stop by the house because he had something he wanted to give us. When he arrived he seemed to be empty-handed, but then he reached in his pocket and pulled out a smooth, black polished stone with the word pouvoir, French for power, on it. He explained that Emma had bought it for him as a gift during their tenth grade trip to Quebec. Emma had presented the stone to him at the end of the trip and thanked him for being such a great chaperone and teacher. He said that he had been so touched by this gesture. In all his years of teaching, he had never had a student do that before. He said that as much as he treasured that stone, he felt that it should come home to us. He hoped it would give us the power, the strength, to face our loss.

There is something spiritual about this story that I can’t completely put my finger on. Maybe it’s the parallel experiences these teachers had with Emma and the fact that they made the exact same choice in the wake of her loss. Maybe it is the sense of connection these tokens had offered to their recipients, a sense of connection and appreciation so memorable, they would never forget it. Or, maybe it’s the sense we got when those gifts came back to us that Emma’s generous spirit was still at work.