When I was in sixth grade, my classroom adviser was a spinster in her early 40s. She was my brother’s adviser in sixth grade and my sister, Liz’s as well. She was one nice lady, warm as a mother but as strict as one.
She used to live in her cozy little house with her widowed mother. The house was spotlessly clean, smelled like newly washed clothes and adorned with handmade arts and crafts. I was fortunate enough to be invited there a couple of times. I wasn’t one of her favorites because I believe she didn’t have one, but she surely was very nice to me and to my other classmates.
So we always do to nice people, I wished her, first and foremost, a husband.
That year, she trained for a declamation contest. It was in the district level which meant that I was to compete against representatives from other schools. Fortunately, I won. I nearly lost, though, to a pretty lass from another school, also a sixth grader, and, I learned later, the daughter of one of the teachers there. I never forgot her.
After three years, I heard a marvelous news. My sixth grade teacher got married! I was so happy for her. But I was stunned when I learned that she married the newly widowed teacher in another school who was the father of the girl who nearly beat me in the declamation contest. I felt, somehow.. betrayed. I have no reason to feel that way, of course, so I just focused on being happy for her.
And I was right to be happy, because I learned that the couple used to be sweethearts when they were young. For some reasons, the guy married someone else and my teacher didn’t marry at all. When the guy got widowed, he married her the moment it was appropriate to do so.
It was my first glimpse of what true love really means.
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