Dear Mrs. M,
I wasn't expecting to hear from you this morning, but what a lovely surprise it was to see your message come across my screen. You were checking in to make sure we were all doing well because you hadn't heard back from any of the emails you sent to me. I quickly replied back to you with the explanation that every email I replied to was kicked back by the system. I didn't tell you that so you wouldn't blame Wolfie for it, I explained this to you so you wouldn't think that I was the parent who didn't care about school success.
I remember that first email you sent to us. In it, you told us to do what was best for our family. You told us that lessons would be available in the Google Classroom and that students were able to log in and keep up with the schedules that had been put up, but that they may do so at the time of day that most suited them. Well, for that first week there was no time in the day that suited the Wolf. To be completely honest with you, I never told him about the email. I never went home from work to say, "Hey, Wolf, Mrs. M sent an email that your Google Classroom is ready for you and you should log in and begin doing work." I say this to you now because I don't want you to think that I didn't respect the time you put into getting curriculum together. Or the time and frustration it must have caused you to suddenly lean into online instruction. And let's not even get into your perfected method of delivering differentiated curriculum to every scholar in your classroom! I didn't want you to think I didn't honor you as his educator and my academic partner.
Last week Wolfie logged into his Google Classroom and noticed he had an assignment to create a self portrait in Google Draw. I was able to work from home that day and watched as his anxiety shot through the roof in 2.5 minutes because he could not figure out how to draw long hair on his head and fill it in, all the while keeping the face white. I held him by his shoulders, took off his glasses, and then hugged him as tightly as I could without squishing him. I whispered in his ear, "If you were in Mrs. M's class right now, what would she tell you to do?" I relaxed my hug and watched as the tears ran down his face. He responded, his words cracking, "She would probably tell me to breathe." I let go of him completely so he could breathe. When I did not know how to bring my son down from the ledge, I had to ask him what YOU would do for him because you spend more waking hours with my Wolf, our Wolf. My son knew you would tell him to breathe, and so he breathed deeply in the same way he would have had he been sitting in your 4th grade classroom. Thank you.
Where do you get your super powers from? Were you born with them? Maybe you woke up one day and said, 'M, you're not only going to be a teacher, but you're going to be compassionate, equitable, emotionally intelligent, and above all--empathetic. You're going to teach learners with every imaginable ability and you're going to be thrown through the ringer by some of their parents, but you are still going to show up every day for these students because they each have the ability to change the world.' Did you say that to yourself? This is exactly the way your students and their parents see you. I also see this vision of you wearing an emerald cape with cute cougar paw prints all over it, but I digress.
I'm going to finish this letter with a quick story: On Monday evening after I took a shower, I began to prepare dinner for the evening. I looked in the refrigerator for the vegetables I roasted the night before. When he heard me moving things around in the kitchen, Wolfie walked in and asked, "Whatcha looking for, ma?" I replied, "I'm looking for the vegetables I told you we would share today." He motioned to the sink where the empty container was waiting to be washed. Before I could consider being angry with him, he reached out his hands to me and said, "C'mon, ma, let's dance." He whispered to me as we danced, my anger quickly dissipating, "You just need to remember to breathe, ma."
Mrs. M, I don't know how to thank you for all you have done for my Wolf. You have shown him (and our family) calmness in a time of tempest, kindness in a time of chaos, and above all, you have proven to be one of Wolfie's greatest guides. And I thank you. And I thank you. And I thank you.
May Creator continue to provide you and your family with all you need to get through this pandemic. We will see you on the other side of this. Until then, we will remember to breathe deeply.
Your friend and academic partner,
Lorena M. Ortega
PS. In case you were missing Wolfie's unruly braids, here is a photo I took after he burrowed himself in my blankets this morning.
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