By Sue Lay

My third-grade class shuffled out when the bell rang. But my shuffling was stopped by my teacher Mrs. Going.

“Susie, I want to talk to you. Sit down at this table with me,” she said. How was I, she wanted to know? How did I like school?

I did the appropriate “yes” nods.

She asked if I was happy. Then she asked. “Why don’t you do your homework?”

I shrugged.

“What don’t you understand?”

Another shrug.

She dug out one of my worksheets and shoved it at me. “What does it say?”

I shrugged.

“Read it to me.” She was beginning to get aggravated.

I shook my head “no” and shrugged again. There was silence, and this blessed woman asked me the most important question of my life.

“Susie, can you read?’

“No,” I said. There was silence for a long time.

Then she asked me, “Would you like to learn?”

I nodded yes. In the next few months, my life went from black and white to color. How Mrs. Going taught me is a mystery. What I remember are amazement and delight. Everything talked to me! Some signs told you where to go! I didn’t have to wait to follow a girl into the bathroom to get the right one. I knew what to say as we went through the lunch line. Things like “Gravy!” “French fries!” I didn’t slow the line down. I didn’t have to bring my lunch because I was too ashamed of pointing. My mother would never know that was why she had to make a cheese sandwich every day. Most important my parents wouldn’t know their daughter was stupid and slow.

Mrs. Going also taught me cursive writing. She taught me how letters pointed with a few quick tricks like “B” and “D” formed by your hands with “B” in the left and “D” and the right. The bulgy parts faced the right way. If this is my right hand, then when I turnaround isn’t my right now my left? Now I knew how to tell the difference.

A few months later, as we were just getting into stories and books, Dad came back from the Middle East, and we went to Illinois. I missed her terribly. But it was okay because now I could read. My friends lived in books, so I was no longer alone wherever we went.

In honor of this accomplishment, my parents gave me a bicycle. A white Schwinn with saddlebags. I pedaled to the library every day and loaded up books. On one of the journeys, an idea came to me. If the books told me things, could I write back? And here we are.

Thank you, Margaret and the Thursday People, for helping us all write and read and understand. Most of all, for sharing your stories.