Nows and Forevers

Yesterday wasn’t just Flag Day. Wednesday was what would have been the 83rd birthday of my eighth-grade English teacher, Kathy Clark.

Amazing what you remember, isn’t it?

Been a long time since I was an 8th grader at Coronado Middle School in Coronado, California. I was a transfer student from Connecticut, just me and my mom at first and a continent away from my father, grandparents and everything I’d ever known. I hadn’t ever been this far west, even for a visit.

Mrs. Clark was the first teacher I had who I considered more than just a teacher. All through elementary and middle school I liked my teachers but rarely if ever thought of them as having lives outside of school, even if I saw them in the community. But Mrs. Clark was different. She was a great teacher and communicated her passion for English to her students. But she also communicated her zest and passion for life, and all the wonderful opportunities it presented.

She, like many of us at Coronado schools, had grown up as the child of a Navy parent. She came to Coronado as a young girl in the early 1950s, left for a while because of the Navy, and returned for her senior year to graduate from Coronado High School in 1958. She was Miss Coronado that year, something she talked about with a smile. She shared other experiences in her life, which by the time I was in her class was about 40 years, a little less than half her time on earth. And I remember one day other teachers celebrating her birthday.

Flag Day.

Don’t know why I remember still. But I do.

I also remember a lot of the skills Mrs. Clark taught me that year, including a dose of grammar that was intense but also delivered in such a way that it stuck, and a love of the theatre, which she had and I did, too. I remember one of her projects, writing a letter to a company about an issue and getting a response. It taught us how to compose a business letter and to advocate for ourselves. I picked a life insurance company and asked for more information about its commitment to seat-belt innovation and safety. And they responded!

I left Mrs. Clark’s class with a love of English and the inspiration to read and write, even more than I did before. It would set me along the path of English and literature and writing classes throughout high school and college, to the point where I came this close to majoring in English (I took almost enough classes to do so) and helped prepare me for the career I have. And it was in my eighth grade year that I began in earnest writing stories, thanks to her inspiration and the fact that I realized I finally had something to say.

I left Coronado in the middle of 10th grade, headed back to the East Coast when my mother was diagnosed with cancer. I lost track of all of my friends in Coronado in the next several years and it is the only part of my life that Facebook hasn’t re-connected. I had thought about going to college in San Diego but decided against it, and it wasn’t until 22 years later, when I worked for The Hollywood Reporter, that I ever got back to California. I was there twice since then, seeing the old places but not attempting to make any connections with anyone I used to know.

So it wasn’t until recently that I learned that Mrs. Clark died in 2015 after a bout with cancer. It’s hard, sometimes, to reconcile the younger person you used to know with a man or a woman claimed by cancer. I’ve felt that way with a number of friends and family members, including my mother, who died young. Mrs. Clark was the bright, full-of spirt 42-year-old woman who taught me so long ago. Time passes, whether we realize it or not.

Yet reading her obituary in The Coronado Times and a tribute from another teacher, I learned what I already knew: Thousands of Coronado Middle School students before and after me were also affected by her.

The obituary had a quote from Mrs. Clark, days before she died:

“I just hope and pray one student would have found some inspiration in what I taught,” she said. “That would make me happy.”

Mrs. Clark, you did. Thank you.