Day 19

Started Today On: Page 220

Ended On: Page 230

Pages Read Today: 10

Today I said goodbye to some of my students. I didn’t know that our last normal day together was last Wednesday. Three years of growth ended a week earlier than I had prepared for. 

Looking back, I definitely had an inkling. I walked over to the pile of books we love to read most and grabbed my copy of The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse. I bought it in New Zealand last year as a way to commemorate the biggest achievement of my life at that point. My sudden fear of flying took more out of my life than I could describe in a post that isn’t about this in the first place. Crossing the world from the furthest point imaginable felt impossible. And so, in a gallery café tucked away off the side of the road in Little River, once the realisation that I had actually made it hit, I needed something to hold onto for the rest of my life.

The book’s new edition stood out among crystal figurines and perfumes amidst paintings hung in shades of blue and purple. I knew I had to bring it back to the classroom that taught me to face my fears in return. Every lesson I taught returned right back to me, as if I had never truly understood what I was saying in the first place. When one of my students found out how long my flights would be, she appeared with a travel pillow the next day. Lesson after lesson. 

After travelling back home (my second highest achievement), I read it to them. Every moral, lesson and rhyme let me know we were really learning together for the first time. Not to read or write, but to live. To be decent, kind, to prioritise our dreams and understand others. As we discussed moving up to the next chapter in their education, we talked about how I would also be walking out of the same door to go out into the big world and follow my dreams, just like them. Last Wednesday, they signed the last page. I knew I would hold on to that book forever.

I read 10 pages. Today was about saying goodbye.