Change
Directions
“Sometimes
the slightest things change the directions of our lives, the merest breath of
circumstance, a random moment that connects like a meteorite striking earth.
Lives have swiveled and changed directions on the strength of a chance remark.”
Bryce
Courtenay (The Power of One, p. 71; Penguin Books, 1989)
Sometimes,
change is slow. It seems to take forever for reality to dawn on us—especially if
we are comfortable in our situation or simply resigned to our situation. On the
other hand, change can come in a nanosecond—unannounced and irrevocable. Some
of us can point to a moment when our lives changed, and some of us would have
to give that some thought. One thing I have come to understand in this long
life of mine is that it doesn’t take an act of Congress (thank God), or even a
village to make a significant change in a person’s life—one person can do it.
When I
was growing up in that small mill town in North Carolina, there were the rich
and powerful, and there were the poor and helpless, and a sprinkling of folks
in between. My family resided squarely in the middle ground. And I was the
middle child in that middling family in the middle ground. I was neither the
smartest nor the prettiest nor the most talented nor any of the other “mosts”
you can think up. I was, to put it clearly, insignificant. Senior year, I had
Mrs. Kidd for English literature. Mrs. Kidd was no beauty herself. She had a cleft
lip with a mediocre repair job and no plastic surgery. That didn’t seem to hold
her back at all. We were reading Milton’s Paradise Lost aloud, paragraph-by-paragraph,
when this incident occurred. Mrs. Kidd was teaching, and Hugh Bigham was, as
usual, torturing me, “Mallonee, come on, let me copy your homework. I didn’t
have time to do it.” I was telling him all the reasons I couldn’t do that. Suddenly,
Mrs. Kidd slammed her hand down on the lectern and shouted my name. I was so
stunned I couldn’t respond. She threw me out of class—me, not Hugh—and told me
to come see her after school. Of course, I cried for the rest of the day,
embarrassed tears of mortification and victimization.
When I went to her
classroom after the final bell, I had no idea what would happen—was she going
to call my parents or get me in trouble with the principal? What she told me was:
“I know what’s going on at home, Jane, and I know that makes it hard for you
to concentrate, but I want you to understand that you are the only student I
have in this class who understands this stuff. I see your eyes light up when we’re
reading. I know you love it as much as I do. So, if you aren’t with me, I may
as well not be here.” Again, I was stunned! I expected to be punished and
instead, I was valued by this woman who seemed to really care about me. That
had never happened to me before, and I am still processing it decades later. It
changed me and in changing me, it impacted my whole family and my future.
It only takes one act of kindness
to change the trajectory of a person’s life. If you have an opportunity today
to have an impact on someone who is losing hope, or losing confidence, tell
them that they are worthy, they are strong, and that they can handle whatever
comes their way. Tell them how valuable they are to you, and how much you want
them to succeed. That’s what Mrs. Kidd did for me, and I’m still thankful for her
every day.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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