Not long ago we learned that local soldier Randy Neff had been killed in Afghanistan. He was a classmate of Marisa’s, from elementary through High School, graduating in 2006. Flags continue to be flown at half staff in the city, as they have ever since word was received, and on Monday they were lowered all across the state of Idaho.
Marisa’s 5th grade year was probably the worst public school class of any of my children ever, and with 6 kids that’s a lot of classes. I had never requested a teacher before, I never saw the need, and this was my 4th child in 5th grade, so there had already been over 40 opportunities to do so. I found out that year why parents request, and it often has nothing to do with the teacher. It has to do with the other students in the class. Pretty much all of the other happy, well-adjusted children’s parents had requested the other 5th grade teacher that year, and unfortunately the principal let this happen, and the two classes were very unbalanced. Marisa’s class had only 4 girls and about 20 rowdy boys. Everywhere she went that year whether it was P.E., Music, or the Library, her class was told they were the worst class that specialist teacher had ever seen. Often they didn’t even get to participate in the activity, spending the whole 30 minutes being lectured by a teacher at their wit’s end. Sometimes the teacher would say “this is the worst class I’ve ever seen – except you Marisa” which was nice but still didn’t give her a chance for happy class participation in a game of volleyball. She was in GT, so once a week she got to leave her classroom and learn some things. I imagine her classroom teacher was frustrated and overwhelmed with this class. Perhaps that’s why when Randy Neff was being bullied, she believed the bullies when they said, for example, he was breaking his own pencils and blaming it on them. I didn’t know this until this past week, but the time finally came in that class when Randy’s mother came to school and confronted the class and the teacher. The teacher asked the class if what Randy had been telling her was true, that he was being bullied by these boys. Nobody would say anything, they were probably either afraid or they were doing the bullying. But Marisa spoke up, and she told the truth, and was the only one who was brave enough to stand up for the bullied boy. I’m proud of her little 10 year old self for doing that all those years ago.
Seven years later, when she was a senior in High School, she got called out of class one day. It was Randy Neff, and he wanted to thank her for being the only one to stand up for him and tell the truth back in 5th grade. I’m proud of him for doing that too.
You never know when something you do is going to have an effect on someone, enough that they will remember it for years, and enough that they feel the need to tell you “thank you” seven years later.
I looked in Marisa’s yearbook to find a photo of the boy who was killed by a roadside bomb half a world away. Under his photo is his senior quote which reads “People can hurt you only if you let them”.
