Every once in awhile something happens at just the right time—just when you need it the most.

There have been a couple of challenging days at school (including today), and after a particularly annoying and irritating conversation with someone on the phone (honestly, do any of you men out there even listen to yourselves sometimes?) I stopped at the credit union to deposit some very, very, very overduely (not a real word, you get the idea) held checks. When I handed the checks and my deposit slip to the teller, he said something I hear pretty frequently up in my neck of the woods… “Did you used to teach X grade at XXX school?” I did recognize the face but couldn’t remember the name—and when he told me, I did remember. He started to reel off all the wonderful memories he had of being in my classroom—one after the other. “I remember you teaching us how to write power paragraphs, and when I went to high school they were just starting to teach it and I already knew how. And I remember the end of the year trivia contest we had—that was really so much fun. Nobody knew how tall a Smurf was. And when you’d let special kids sit on the couch with you when you read out loud” (actually we just drew names each day!). He said he loved being in that class—which was such a nice thing to hear. That class was my last class before I left to go to my current school to be in the library. I asked him if he remembered making the quilt in our class—he said yes. When I found out I was leaving the school and the classroom at the end of the year, I had my kids pick their favorite memory of 5th grade and design a quilt block with fabric crayons. A friend of mine put them all together into a quilt for me. I told him I had that quilt hanging in my office now. I can’t wait to go to school Monday and see what he drew.

You know, I could have gone so many different days in the last month or so to deposit those checks. I’m so glad I went today.