Mary Migley


"City of Sorrow"



On her last day of school, Ms. Redding explained to her 156 students over the
course of six class periods that she would be gone for a couple of days to visit her father, who was undergoing heart surgery.  Her students never saw her again.  Even at her funeral, the closed casket obstructed her from view.


During her second day of absence, rumors had circulated that the teacher had
been admitted into the hospital for a serious heart condition of her own.  Many of her students disregarded the reports, assuming some ignorant kid had gotten confused between her and her ill father she had left to visit.


On the third day, a Friday, the principal made an announcement over the crackling PA system that Ms. Redding may not make it through the weekend.


One student, a blonde girl named Helen thought out loud, "If she dies, wouldn't it be cool if we got out for a day?"   Helen was Ms. Redding's second best student in her fourth period biology class.


Despite the insensitive sentiment, the other students couldn't help but agree.
Even Rob, a quiet boy who considered Ms. Redding his favorite teacher, let a smile cross his lips at the thought.  His face then burned with shame, and he quickly scolded himself.


They held a memorial service during school on Tuesday in the gymnasium.  The
other teachers who knew Ms. Redding the best told stories and reminisced in front of the student body sitting in the bleachers.  A handful of the teenagers grew teary-eyed.  Four girls even broke down and cried loudly when Mrs. Williams recounted a funny instance of the two of them traveling to Rome and getting lost in their own hotel.  Three of those sobbing girls never actually had Ms. Redding as a teacher.


School was called off Wednesday.  In the school parking lot, three buses were
available to transport the students who wished to go to Ms. Redding's funeral, held in a town forty minutes away.  When the buses pulled out, they were filled, but not overcrowded, with students and a few teachers.  All were dressed in black or some other dark, somber color.


The funeral progressed amidst a background filled with wet sniffles, caused from a combination of tears as well as a particularly nasty cold epidemic that had just swept the school.  However, there was very little chatter, a rare occurrence during school gatherings.  Instead, the solemn mood created a blanket of heavy, almost uncomfortable silence.  Many students stood with their heads lowered in respect and mourning while others shifted restlessly, affected by the unfamiliar sense of collective sadness.


After the funeral, since it was well past noon, the buses stopped for lunch.  The sight of three busloads of kids wearing black lining up in a MacDonald's broke the tension among the students, and it wasn't long before a boy dumped the contents of a salt-shaker over another boy's head and other typical teenaged behavior commenced.


The next day at school, everything returned to normal, except for that brief,
awkward 45-minute interruption each of Ms. Redding's former students experienced during her class.  From all outward appearances, and even much of the inward, the students were largely unaffected by the teacher's sudden death.  However, suddenly every memory and opinion of Ms. Redding became sweeter, and she was voted Favorite Teacher.  In the following months and then years, the students could look back at her with a sad admiration that death only allows.


But as with death, the memories slowly faded until her name only inspired a vague feeling of fondness.