We’re made kind by being kind
Eric Hoffer

The most lasting acts of love are often unnoticed because they are done with so little fanfare. They are daily occurrences inspired by a generous heart. All of us have been the fortunate recipients of these unexpected and magnificent deeds. Once received they flower into memories that deepen throughout our lives.

I cherish all these gifts of the heart but one I received from a ten-year-old child has never been equaled for me. In the fifties, I tutored a developmentally disabled child named Debby Ware. Her mother scheduled a conference with me and as we spoke, I realized she thought her daughter lacked every mental and social skill that created a functioning human being. “I have been taking her to tutors ever since she was five years old,” said Mrs. Ware. “But she is so thick, nothing penetrates. Thank God it isn’t hereditary. Her two brothers are A students and star athletes. Debby is ten years old and cannot even set the table. All she does is daydream and hum little songs to herself. Can you believe that?”

Indeed I could believe it. I too could never remember on which side to put the fork or where to place a water glass. I was wrapped up in romantic notions about the prince awakening Sleeping Beauty and worried lest that little frog would never stop spitting diamonds and get a life.

I fully expected to greet a drooling dunce when Debby knocked on my classroom door the next day. Instead, I met a serious little girl, gentle and refreshing as the first breeze of spring. She had an aura of simplicity about her so charming that I felt enriched just sitting beside her. We bonded immediately and I adored her. I did not find her either backward or poorly coordinated. She was not an impulsive child and addressed every challenge with slow careful precision. It was apparent that her sense of self worth had been smudged because her gifts were not the intellectual or physical ones prized in her home and at school. They were gifts of the spirit. Debby thrilled to the shine of the sun and the song of a bird. One could kindle her laughter with a hug and thrill her with her favorite cookie or cobweb on the window pane.

We met three times a week and together we translated the hieroglyphics on a page into something meaningful for her. Debby learned to read with me even though she may not have enjoyed the process. For over a year, she appeared on time for every lesson and never moved from her chair beside my desk until I hugged her and said.” Good job, Debby! See you day after tomorrow.”
She stood up and smiled at me as if I had told her she had won a Nobel Prize. I helped her with her coat and took her hand. “Let’s wait outside for your mother, Debby,” I said and we walked to front of the building. Mrs. Ware pulled up to the curb honked the horn and Debby would squeeze my hand and tilt her cheek for my good-bye kiss. As they drove away, Debby leaned out the window to wave until the car turned the corner.

The following year, we continued her lessons, but one month into the term, I was in an almost fatal automobile accident. My eyes loosened from their sockets, my foot and arm were broken and the left side of my face had to be rebuilt. I was swathed in bandages and walked with a crutch. Although I could not resume classroom teaching, Mrs. Ware called and asked if I would continue tutoring Debby. “She is having a terrible time in the fourth grade,” she said. “She never would have passed out of the third without you and now I’m afraid they’ll put her back there again “

“I would love to help Debby,” I said. “But she might be frightened when she sees me. My face is covered with dressings and my arm is in a cast.”

“Debby wouldn’t care if you were a mummy chained to a casket,” said Mrs. Ware. “She asks when she can see you every day. “

And so once again, three times a week, Mrs. Ware drove her child to me, this time in my mother’s house. She walked down the hall to my room and set her books down on my desk. She never reacted to the bandages, the cast, and my muffled speech. She sat with her hand in her lap while I found the correct page and began to explain the words and what they meant. We concentrated as hard as we could for thirty minutes and then we drew pictures and talked about what Debby did when she not with me. She had no friends that were important to her and her conversation revolved around all the wonderful things her brothers were allowed to do. “Someday, maybe I can learn to ride a bicycle too,” she said. “Then Daddy will buy me a red one just like Robert has.”

At four o’clock, Mrs. Ware pulled into our driveway and honked the horn. Debbie put away our crayons and paper, closed her book.. “Good-bye, Miss Miller,” she said and tilted her cheek for my kiss. I stood at the door just as I had stood in front of the school and watched her hurry into her mothers waiting car. She waved to me once more before the two of them drove away.

Debby‘s love for me was so strong, I still feel its warmth. She showed me her devotion when she placed a pencil in my bandaged hand, when she opened the door so I could limp into our study room, when she looked into my mangled face and glowed with pleasure at the me behind them. I was her teacher and I was beautiful to her.

I may have taught Debby to read, but she taught me something far more important. She taught me that love makes all things possible. If the teachers she had met before me had bothered to work with the child instead of a printed page, Debby Ware would have been reading long before she was ten years old. If Mrs. Ware had taken the time to notice how many special qualities her child possessed, she might have valued her little girl’s achievements as much if not more than her sons’ prowess with a baseball bat and a scholastic achievement test. Debby was skilled in seeing beauty in a raindrop or a haunting melody. She could thrill at a rainbow and weep at a puppy’s kiss. Whenever it is time to send or receive valentines, I remember my magic student and I know how fortunate I was to receive her brilliantly shining valentine every day for three years, a valentine that never diminished in its intensity. Her gift of love lives within me and never stops enriching me. What better valentine can there be?

Love believes all things, hopes all things
And endures all things
Corinthians