Was digging through a box of old stuff when I stumbled upon my first-grade photo and report card in my School Days book my mom (partially) compiled back in the day. (My brother Bill's practically documents has every meal he ate whereas mine has 6 out of 12 school photos!) This was during the time when my mother was pregnant with my sister so we moved in the middle of the school year to another house in Madison Heights that had more bedrooms, which also changed us from Roosevelt to Hiller Elementary. Mrs. Lewandowski was incredibly kind upon my arrival from Mrs. Young's class -- which is more than I can say about some of my classmates, one of whom took the opportunity to re-name me "Paula" because the desk I sat at had been previously used by a girl named that. (It stuck.)
On the Hiller playground with an actual girl named Paula (Huddleston)
Despite the bullying I always got high marks in every subject without ever making even the slightest effort, all the way into college. (In fifth grade my on-top-of-things gay ear allowed me to charge fellow pupils 25 cents for advice at my desk during breaks, a la Lucy Van Pelt, which Mr. Kaimala thought was hilarious!)
What haunts me looking at this report card now is remembering that about 10 years ago I was in touch with my sixth-grade reading teacher who informed me that Mrs. Lewandowski had taken her own life at age 43, just 13 years after I'd been in her class. Although suicide is rarely "expected," it was particularly shocking in her case, according to her friend and onetime colleague, as everything in Mrs. Lewandowski's life appeared to be in order and she'd been getting ready for the annual school pilgrimage to Camp Cedar Lake, which is where my best friend of 46 years. ("She gave us no clue.")
Although I wrote about her in my book, I wish I had gotten the chance as an adult to tell her how special she was to me, especially knowing how trying teaching became in the years that followed. And I wish she -- a larger-than-life presence in my first-grade universe -- had known that my "advice booth" was always open.
