I wasn’t usually that nervous on the first day of school. I feel like everyone always makes a big deal out of it when it really isn’t anything to freak out over. But for some reason, this particular year, I was a little nervous as I got to my first class. My new teacher was standing outside the door. She smiled at me and the judgmental part of my brain turned on. I think everyone judges people by looking at them, at least a little bit. And I really wish they wouldn’t. But I do it too, a lot more than I wish I did. Myself more than anyone else.

As I gazed up at the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, I saw that there wasn’t anything to judge. I knew in that moment that I was going to love her and I hated myself for it. For deciding that because she was pretty, that I was going to like her. It was exactly the thing that this world needs less of. But she ended up being by far the best teacher I have ever had. I loved her more than anyone else, and she grew to be what I guess was kind of like an aunt to me, because I don’t have an actual aunt. The first half of the school year flew by and I found myself dreading the end of the year more and more because of the thought of leaving her.

And then, in March, she wasn’t at school for over a week. I emailed her multiple times, but I never heard from her. No one seemed to know where she was. Finally it was announced that she had fallen and injured herself in a way that had caused her to get sick. She wouldn’t be returning to school for at least the rest of the year if she survived. All I wanted to do was cry along with all the people around me, but my brain was already planning how I could see her. Because there was no way I was going to let her die.

I honestly don’t remember how I got there. I think my mom probably wasn’t home the next morning to I snuck to the city bus instead of the school bus and rode to hospital. Something like that. What I do know is that I ended up at the hospital somehow. They gave me one of those guest pin things and directions to wherever she was. I followed the directions carefully. I remember being stopped by several people asking where my parents were. And then suddenly there she was, and I was crying my eyes out suddenly. And she was staring at me looking so startled that I could have just walked out of the wall. And suddenly I was terrified. It was as though all of those months with her had never happened. I was all alone in this hospital and I wanted to leave. She didn’t need me here. I was just one more thing for her to have to deal with. Just one sobbing girl in front of her. What was I doing there.

‘Sorry,’ I say to her. Then I turn and start to leave, trying to stop crying.

‘No, no, please don’t leave,’ she said from her bed. Her voice was so different that I stopped and turned back to her. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’ she asked. She didn’t sound angry, just amazed and very confused. And like a completely different person. I had to look at her again to see if it was really her. Seeing her all over again started a new wave of tears which poured down my face.

‘Sorry,’ I said.

‘Why on earth are you sorry,’ she asked me. ‘Crying is never something to be sorry for. Crying doesn’t make you weak. I gives you the power to overcome so much more than before. Come closer to me.’

And I did. And the closer I got the more I recognized her and the more love rushed back into my senseless body and I threw myself at her, probably undoing all of the work that the doctors had done with the force of my body. I cried into her for a while. And then I remember telling her a lot of things that I had never told anyone. And I hugged her again and I told her I loved her. I told her that I would come back and I told her that she was the best teacher I’d ever had. I told her that no matter what happened, I would never forget her and all the joy that she had brought to me.

I was getting ready to go visit her again about six weeks later when it was announced that she had passed away the night before. And though all of my grieving, the thought that remained in my head was that I had lied to her. I hadn’t ever come back.