enabling others

 

Of Bonnie

I both want to matter

and to also slip into being dispensable,

a significant part of the backstory,

more like being in people's bibliographies

than in what they create now themselves,

I excelled as a teacher, as an educator,

for I saw, felt, acted upon the reality

of the person before me:

I believed in them,

and I hoped they could then 

believe in themselves,

in part from what I readily gave them,

one former student, 

from early on in my Friends School career,

now asserts her love, her understanding,

the fullness of who she is,

the wholeness of what she hopes for her students,

every day in the classroom at Berkeley,

in her devotion to the relationships she helps create,

as natural to her as breathing,

particularly for those challenged 

by how society deals the cards

they're allowed to play,

if I were they, 

I would appreciate having her on my side

helping me find the ways forward,

I'll bet she shares what drove me for years,

a craving to connect and to help each student

find their way into the power that should be their birthright,

her successes vitally important

as she enables the others

to find their own way,

not that she has made it so by herself,

she matters, but every student of hers 

matters so much more.

by Henry H. Walker

October 23, ‘26