Sometimes, the rewards of teaching are profound.

I met Caroline Ashton six or seven years ago when I was a hospice volunteer working with my border collie Izzie, my first hospice dog. Some of you might recall the photos I published on my blog of Caroline’s beloved husband Noel, who died shortly after Izzy and I visited him. He loved Izzy, and I loved being with these two, their love for one another was something you could reach out and touch.

I confess I loved Caroline from the first time I her, this remarkably gentle, loving and decent person. I knew a number of her former students – she retired to care for Noel shortly before I met her – and if you heard the way they spoke of her, you would love her too, even if you hadn’t met her.

She was one of those teaches who knew and fought for every one of her students, each one. And left them with good thoughts about themselves. One of them is in my class with her, and the connection that still exists between the two is a powerful testament to the wonder of a good teacher.

Caroline adored Noel and she wanted to write about her life with him, but she was too overcome with grief to figure out how.

I invited her to join the first writing class I taught, at Hubbard Hall, she ran away from it for five years, and I kept running after her. I knew she had some beautiful words in her, I heard them whenever she speak, she was convinced she was not a writer, but I knew she was, and I suspected she would come around one day.

Caroline is a tough cookie, and I never doubted she would show up one day.

After five years of my gently badgering her – she is not someone who can be pushed – she appeared class, it was, I think, a year ago. She brought her very wonderful journals, full of notes, ideas, white-outs, markers, notecards and scribbles. She carried them in her bag like the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Many were love letters to Noel.

If you looked at them, – I saw it, everyone in the class saw it – you could see that a beautiful writer she is. But until today, she wouldn’t give me one to read or take home.  She wrote some powerful pieces about Noel, and then began to unfold, to write about her life, her world, her poignant and insightful ideas, her life. Her language was always beautiful and lyrical – as she taught so many students to be in their writing.

Like all good writers, she never wrote to make herself look good, but to tell the truth. She has touched my heart by telling me that Maria and I remind her of her and Noel. That is a wonderful thing to hear.

The class loves Caroline, as I do, and has encouraged her. We are a safe place, if nothing else. Today, Caroline brought a poem to the class.

It is titled “She Is Not A  Writer...” This was a secret message to me, I recognized it right away, it was a joke between us, Caroline telling me a thousand times she was not a writer, me sputtering stubbornly back that she was. I often thought, what could Caroline do, if she were teaching me. I knew she would never give up on me. And I knew she would never give up on herself.

Here are the last three verses of her poem:

“She was not a writer,

yes, she wrote professionally,

report cards, conference write-ups,

meeting notes, weekly letters to parents, lesson plans…

Yes, she wrote for herself,

diaries, journals, letters, memories and jots,

She was not a writer…she said.

And yet, she wrote..and wrote…and writes.”

I teared up when I read this, and I kept my head down, and foolishly hid it from the class, an old reflex that the teacher should be strong and tough. I did not have any models to follow.

I never had a teacher like Caroline, not once in my whole life, and if I had, I imagine my life would have been different, my writing also. Teaching can be a powerful gift, to the teacher and the parent, and I told Caroline today that this is why I decided to teach writing, so that I might try to do for someone what she had done for so many.

Encouragement is perhaps the greatest gift we can offer one another.

I told Caroline I sensed a poet in her writing, and she announced that she has been writing poetry for some time, a surprise to me, her writing instructor. She will bring some to the class next week, and I will begin harassing her to get them published.

Yes, Caroline, you are a writer. Who writes…and writes..and writes.