In what now seems like a different life in an alternative universe, I remember walking through the door of our house across the street from St. Joseph School after work to an unusual but foreboding quiet. These were the years when our three kids were in elementary school. No house is quiet during those years. Melissa looked up from cooking dinner and, instantly, I knew the next thing that was going to happen was not going to be a kiss and a smile and a “how was your day?”
Melissa: “Josh mooned his class today.”
It did not compute. I heard the words moon and Josh and scrambled to remember if I was supposed to have helped him with one of those dreaded projects inflicted on parents by the St. Joseph teachers as a way to remind us of what they have to put up with every day corralling our kids. Since Josh was the second child, I reviewed the list in my head having been through this once with Nick: the mousetrap, the solar system, the sewing project. Nope. No moon project. Was this something new? My stomach cramped.
Melissa: “Did you hear me? Josh mooned his entire class today.”
As the details spilled out, I discovered that Josh’s second grade class (at least the boys anyway) had one of their best days, and Josh ended up, as he often did in his first few years at St. Joseph, in Sheryl Sperry’s office.
Josh and Ms. Sperry spent quite a bit of time with each other during Josh’s first few years at St. Joseph. So much so, that Josh, I think, looked forward to being sent to the Vice Principal’s office. We sent Josh to a different school for a few years, but he returned to St. Joseph and graduated with his eight-grade class. Someone captured a picture of Josh and Ms. Sperry at graduation. Josh is wearing his blue robe and Mortar Board, one of the shortest kids in his class. Ms. Sperry, about eye level with Josh, has a hand on either side of Josh’s cheeks. Ms. Sperry is staring into Josh’s eyes with love and joy, and possibly some relief.
For those parents who have a high-energy child, you understand the relief and gratitude you feel when a teacher, a friend, or a coach understands your child and sees past the antics to the huge heart trying frantically to take everything in without exploding. You whisper a prayer of thanks. You feel the anxiety temporarily lift from your shoulders. You want to hug them and cry.
Ms. Sperry got Josh. She got him the first time he showed up in her office and every time after that. She had that rare ability to love someone into existence, into themself. I know Josh is only one of hundreds of kids Ms. Sperry loved into existence, into the better angel of their nature. Seattle is blooming with the seeds she fed and watered.
I really don’t know Ms. Sperry well enough to say much more about her than what I have written. But, yesterday, when I learned that she had died, my heart broke the way it does for someone who has been close to me all my life, and for that reason, I can say with absolute, heartfelt sincerity that I love Ms. Sperry. In the same way that she cradled the face of my child in his triumph, I send my love, gratitude and prayers for comfort, laughter, and joy to everyone who, like me, has a picture of Ms. Sperry permanently etched in their head.