Jean Gendreau

It’s how these things so often happen. Early on a Monday morning in about 1979, after I had finished meditating, something came to me. It was Mrs. Stanley’s face or maybe her voice. It overwhelmed me. 
These things come like a distant bell, a magical, haunting, beautiful sound that you cannot ignore. I’d been out of high school more than eleven years.  But there she was, my high school English teacher, calling me. 
By then, my life had gone seriously wrong. My first baby had died, my poor drunk husband had gone home to his own country, I was poor, and sometimes depression crippled me.
The joys I had were my little girl and a new sense of hope and love. I had started to meditate.
On that Monday morning, what I suddenly knew — out of nowhere, I thought — was that I had to tell Mrs. Stanley thank you. It was obvious. What I know now is that this nudge came from the “other side.” From the Oneness. From Love. But at that time, I thought it was just a whim. I got a card, wrote a note and mailed it.
A week later the phone rang and there was a trembly fairy voice. “Jean, is that you? Is that you? Where are you? Where are you? Come and see me.”
She was in Madison General Hospital, dying. By then I knew a little bit about death, so I went right away.
She is lying on pillows, oxygen tubes in her nose, IVs in her arms — of course, all her smoking. Lung cancer. The room smells bad, and it’s dim and grey. Her voice sounds the same, but she can barely whisper.
“Your little girl? I thought you’d bring her.”
“I was afraid to — I didn’t know how you would be.”
She nods. “What did I give you? Why did you write me? Was it my teaching?”
This part I know. “No....The teaching was good. But it was never what you said. It was how you were.”
“How?”
“Remember when that girl tried to kill herself and she came into your room?  And you climbed into the ambulance with her and went with her to the hospital?”
She sighs a little. “Poor girl. Yes…yes.”
“You cared so much. You would say anything, do anything…. We were so stupid. So immature. We laughed at you, and you just ignored us. You were there when we wrote bad poetry about how lonely we were. You’d tune into the loneliness. You’d get angry and passionate and push us about the deepest truth, what really mattered. Sure, you taught us the right college prep stuff. But it was never about college prep. It was how you lived, how you were as you looked out at us. You were there for us, for all of us, even when you weren’t supposed to be. Even when it was embarrassing.  You showed us what mattered.  You were strict, but we could trust you to care. You always showed your passion — and damn everyone else.”
“How did you hear me? How?”
I shrug. “I just knew. I just knew — It just came one morning.”
She falls back onto her pillows. “So there is something ... Oh God. Oh God.” Tears slide down her cheeks. She sobs.
It was the only time I saw her. In a few days she died.  But she had taught me one more time.
It’s not who you are or what you are that matters in the end. Certainly it is not power, money, or titles.  It’s how you are. Kind. Tender. Caring — No matter who laughs at you. How you touch. How you speak. 
Look into the eyes of the loner nobody likes. Listen to confused or sad words. Even if everyone else has made a face and walked past, pause, for the sake of goodness.
Touch kindly. Be there. Let your eyes shine because joy can defeat despair. Tell others how precious they are so they know. Caring — and showing the world that we care — heals us.
How you are is exactly how Goodness happens in this world. How you are is the only thing that matters. That’s it — the whole thing. Not what to be, not who to be. How to be.