By the time we arrived at our old family home we were bone tired. It was good to get off the road and open the door to a safe place of summer reflection. It was the perfect occasion to reminisce…
I was entering elementary school and I still didn’t talk. I was born into a family that was extroverted, emotional, musical, and exhausting. There was so much commotion in our house I had no desire to contribute to it. So I didn’t.
My first grade teacher didn’t seem to think it was odd that I didn’t say anything. She assigned me a desk, made sure I got lunch, and went on with the day. The year ended as it began.
Our second grade teacher was magical. She looked like Snow White and children whistled while they worked. She was young, happy, and smart. Or seemed to be, despite the fact that she didn’t seem to understand that I had nothing to say.
She’d ask me a question about arithmetic or spelling, wait for an answer, and act as though I gave one. The children, exasperated at her effort or frustrated with her innocence, repeatedly groaned, “Joyce doesn’t talk.” If she noticed she didn’t show it. Instead, she’d nod her approval and call on the next child. The same would happen at recess, which I’d spend situated in the crook of big shade tree. She’d stop by to visit, listen to me think, nod, smile, and continue her rounds.
We were nearing the end of the school year when she announced we were going to turn our favorite story, Hansel and Gretel into a play and… before she could finish her sentence the children went wild, waving their arms, vying for starring roles. She ignored the outburst. “Jimmy will play Hansel,” she said, “Susan will play Gretel, and the Witch will be played by…” the room hushed as she named the last of three cast-members, the one all remaining second graders now aspired…
“Joyce,” she said. Well, that did it. The class revolted. “JOYCE DOESN’T TALK!!!!” She was not moved. Her decision was final. The play would begin right after lunch.
She perched a hat on Hansel, tied an apron on Gretel, and tucked me inside the shimmery folds of her beautiful, black silk coat. I was perfectly, absolutely invisible.
It was show time. Hansel and Gretel, lost in the woods, made their way to the witch’s house where I, concealed inside the teacher’s coat, awaited them. That’s when it happened.
The witch cackled. She cackled, I cackled! Out loud, in a very scary, very convincing witch’s voice… and no one, not Hansel or Gretel, responded. Wondering where they all went, I peered out from my hiding place just as they cried out, “Joyce can talk!” They jumped up and down, hugged each other and best of all, they hugged me.
At our old family home, sitting in the midst of childhood memories, I received a phone call from my teacher, who is now 81. She was going through a scrapbook, found a letter I had written a very long time ago, telling her what she had meant to me. She wanted me to know what that letter meant to her.
My teacher, Jean House, had talent, grace, curiosity, intuition, infinite patience, and she changed my life. She taught school that one year and I had the extraordinary good fortune to have been one of her students.
