Revisiting my Life, Part 1

At my math department retirement party last week, a couple of our teachers were talking about student friendships and facebook. One has a policy that no one can be called her friend until they turn 21. Another said, and this is a paraphrase, "I don't want anything to do with them once they leave high school." I was thinking to myself, "Wow, I couldn't live like that." Now both of these teachers are great teachers and extremely popular with their students. They are both math majors and they do a much better job of delivering curriculum and holding students accountable than I do. Maybe it's because of my coaching background, but I was (at least in 3 days it will be "was") in education for the relationships.

I was thinking of their conversation last night at Souplantation as Jan and I had dinner with a girl from the class of '85 and two of her children. I never had her in class, but she was on our national championship cross country team in '85. I wasn't her primary coach, but my function was to keep these quality athletes from assaulting their coach! She was a strong Christian then, and it is obvious her spiritual life has continued to grow and mature. She's currently living in Spokane, having moved there 3 years ago for a slower pace of life. She has a boy, 6, and girls, 4 and 3, and is looking, so far unsuccessfully, to adopt another little boy. They are down for a couple of weeks while her husband works on his Doctorate in Christian Education at Biola. I caught up on her siblings, parents, and told her when I said goodbye, "You turned out just like I thought you would." Every time one of my former students seems genuinely happy to reconnect with me, I get this indescribable sense of joy and validation. Friends ARE friends forever.

I mentioned this dinner on my fb status last night. I already have a comment from another former student, asking, "When's my turn?" Stay tuned for further installments.