A poem.

I was home schooled most of my life.  In 7th grade my mom took a break from teaching me and my siblings so she could care for her dying mother.  Omi was one of the most beautiful, strong-willed, courageous women I knew and I wanted to be like her in every way.  I will never forget the day she took me into her office and told me she wanted me to write her memoir.  Imagine this eleven-year-old girl sitting across from my boney grandmother, her head wrapped in a scarf and fingers idly touching her chest, while I soaked in every single word and motion she made.



I didn't even really understand what death was.  I didn't understand that she was going to die.  I knew she was sick.  I knew that some day she wouldn't be here anymore.  But sitting in the office all I could think about was how in awe of her I was.  I didn't think about how I didn't know enough to write a memoir.  I didn't really know her very well at all.  I knew that when I was with her, I felt like she saw only me.  No matter how many people were in a room, she always made me feel seen.


In 10th and 11th grades I was home schooled again, but I took a few college night classes across the street at St. Hubert's High School.  It was there I met two of my most beloved teachers of all time - first Marisa Rauscher, then her father, Francis Xavier Rauscher.  (If they ever stumble across this blog - please forgive me for my abysmal grammar.  In addition to everything else, I have been told I am too fond of Emily Dickinson's dashes)


Mr. Rauscher was fond of retelling stories from his Irish Catholic childhood and loved Dylan Thomas, John Donne and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain.  Mr. Rauscher said this famous story of a runaway boy and a runaway slave was a prayer.  It was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever heard.


I have never loved a teacher in my life more than Mr. Rauscher.  I spent more time devouring poems and short stories and other worlds during those semesters than I ever have since.  I was just one student out of hundreds or maybe thousands that he had taught over the years, but I always felt like he saw me.  He cared.  He asked me once to write an essay on John Donne's  A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning.  I never did it.  I've always felt that I owe that to him.


One day, we were to bring something into class that we believed was a poem.  It could be a photograph, a sculpture, anything, so long at it wasn't an actual "poem".  I had a high fever but I wanted to bring in this song that had been instrumental in my life during the past few months.  "Center Aisle" by Caedmon's Call dealt with a young girl who had committed suicide, and the funeral room filled with people who would have helped her if they'd known she needed someone.  I stood at the front of the room playing this song, my entire body shaking and burning from the fever.  By the end, I was crying.  When it was done, I whispered that I should leave and I walked home.


That song is a poem.  Life is a poem.  Staying alive, even.  Or living while you're here to do it.


Omi, I'm sorry I haven't written your memoir.  Mr. Rauscher, I'm sorry I never wrote that essay.  Maybe the two are really one in the same.  I'm going to do it some day.

--- Center Aisle, by Caedmon's Call ---