been very different without the books
she introduced me to, the critiques
she gave my writing, and the way she
made it clear that she thought I was
someone special,” Pierce told me.
“I was very short on these things in
those years, and without her saying
so, she gave me belief in myself.”
In June 2011, I was living overseas
and came home for a few weeks.
My mother had been battling ovar-
ian cancer for five years, and vari-
ous cocktails of chemotherapy had
become unable to stop its march.
Weakened and mostly confined to
bed, she received a steady stream of
friends smilingly. She was dying, and
she was saying goodbye.
As part of this wrenching process,
she asked me to e-mail Pierce, which
she was too weak to do herself. Here
is part of what I wrote:
“I was helping her clean and orga-
nize her closet and dresser drawers,
and she said it reminded her of how
you, as a student, would stay after
school to straighten her desk. ‘She
was so cute at doing that. She was so
concerned at the end of the day,’ my
mom said of you. ‘Tell her how much
I appreciated it.’”
My mother was humble, but that
end-of-life request—that I wish
Pierce well—also showed me she was
proud. Proud, surprised, and so very
delighted to know that she’d made a
difference.
washington post (may 11, 2018), copyright © 2018 by
washington post, washingtonpost.com.THE LIST
By Helen P. Mrosla
from proteuse was in the first third-
grade class I taught at
St. Mary’s School in
Morris, Minnesota. All 34
of my students were dear
to me, but Mark Eklund was one in a
million: very neat in appearance with
a happy-to-be-alive attitude. He also
talked incessantly.
I had to remind him repeatedly
that talking without permission was
not acceptable. What impressed me
so much, though, was his sincere re-
sponse every time I corrected him for
misbehaving: “Thank you for correct-
ing me, Sister!” I didn’t know what to
make of it at first, but before long I
became accustomed to hearing it
many times a day.
One morning, I made a novice
teacher’s mistake. When Mark talked
once too often, I told him, “If you say
one more word, I am going to tape
your mouth shut!”
It wasn’t ten seconds later when
Chuck blurted out, “Mark is talking
again.” And since I had stated the
punishment in front of the class, I
had to act on it.
I remember the scene as if it oc-
curred this morning. I walked to my
desk, opened my drawer very delib-
erately, and took out a roll of masking70 september 2019
Reader’s Digest