MEMORY


C'est tout moi ça !“So do you miss it?”  she’ll ask when there's a lull in the conversation.  A few years ago Jenny's mom sold her home in Illinois and moved to Milwaukee to be closer to us. Other than the years she took off when raising her kids she was a teacher her whole life. She's 84 now and her memory is fading. She loses track of her place in conversations but there's one thing that doesn't seem to slip. She knows that I was a teacher and that I'm not anymore.
I try to explain that the job is different than it was when she taught, and that I wasn't exactly working in Mayberry, but none of it seems to convince her. In another “Groundhog Day” reminiscent scene I find myself having to justify my decision to get out.  
“Maybe you could apply to work in the suburbs,” she’ll suggest.  “No, I was a city kid,” I tell her.  “Besides, there’d be hundreds of applicants for every position and my resume wouldn’t exactly stick out.” “What about a private school . . . ?”
Eventually I usually manage to persuade her that I made the right decision.  I tell her teaching is a calling and it just wasn’t calling me anymore.  I tell her about “compassion fatigue,” and how I went from feeling like I could make a difference in the world to feeling the weight of that world.  

Sometimes it seems like she’s messing with me but I know that isn't it.  It just bothers her that I’m not a teacher anymore, and I understand that because even after all this time it bothers me too . . .

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