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Cheers

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Wow--this was hard to write. Journaling reads: It’s been 12 years since I went to Spain for the first time. I was 18 years old, newly graduated from high school and felt like I had the world by the horns. Looking back on my experience, I am now 30 years old, a mother of a toddler and my idea of excitement is going to the grocery store without a 2 year old.

Mrs. Rudy was my favorite teacher, and going to Spain with her and her husband as chaperones seemed like a dream. Even though I attended a co-ed public school, our travel group consisted of 11 girls ranging from almost-Sophomores to almost-college Freshmen. We started out as a group of girls who didn’t really know each other, for the most part. One of the girls was the cheerleader everyone knew. A few were quiet, timid Freshmen who the rest of us had never paid attention to. During the planning of the trip, we got closer and closer. By the end of the trip, we couldn’t believe we’d lived without each other for so long. Like most other experiences in life, the magic didn’t last. Although we had a great time and promised to keep in touch, most of us did not keep in touch afterwards. Several of us went off to college, starting a new chapter in our lives. I truly got to know people who I had never associated with in high school. It’s just strange that we had to go to another continent to do so!

I kept telling myself I’d finish this book and take it to show Mrs. Rudy. For years I thought about starting it, and never got to it. When Mrs. Rudy was diagnosed, the school actually asked me to get a teaching certificate so I could teach her classes for her while she was being treated. I wanted to so badly, but wasn’t able because I was attending Graduate School. It felt like something I could do for her to repay everything she taught me. I kept sending her cards and letters, filling her in on my life and what I was up to. As she got sicker, I did not hear from her as often. Finally, when she died, I took the day off work and drove home for the funeral. As I stood there in front of her casket, I felt like I’d lost a family member. The world lost a woman who had no children of her own, yet spent her life teaching small-town kids a language that most of them would never use past high school.

It’s funny how a high school teacher that I had for one year impacted my life so much. She spent her summers showing kids the world. Her Spain–the country that she loved almost as much as the USA. I will never be able to see a red BMW (her car of choice) or see someone in a crazy-colored dress or hat and not think of her. She had this flair, this sense of style that everyone should have. She was one of those people who thought life was fun, and I feel so badly for the kids that missed out on the opportunity to have her as a teacher.

They say that teaching changes the world, and in Mrs. Rudy’s case it did. My world.


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