Dear Abby

I was alone in my classroom when the phone rang. It was the assistant principal. She said that a former student of mine was coming down to see me. "Do you remember an 'Abby'?" I tried to place the name among the hundreds that I have had run past me on the treadmill we call elementary education. Here is the truth: I remember about six or seven students each year. That doesn't mean that I can't place the names with faces if given a few minutes or a helpful reminder, but if you asked me to recite the names of the kids in my class from last year, I would come up with that half dozen previously described, and then ask to look at the picture. Denny and Karla are in my Hall of Fame. They're the ones that I tell stories about years later. They're the ones that keep me coming back to school after a particularly rough day.
But Abby? Even when I was given a number of connections to sisters and brothers and other teachers she had, I still drew a blank. "She says she remembers you when you were the computer teacher." That would be more than four years ago, so now I worried that I would just stare blankly. "Oh, and be happy for her. She has a baby." With these words my assistant principal signed off, and I waited, wincing in anticipation.
Then a stroller appeared at my door. I recognized the young lady pushing it. It was Abby. Six years older, but Abby. Suddenly I had context. I remembered her shyness. I remembered her awful spelling. I remembered everything about her. Now she's somebody's mom. Little Charlie stared wide-eyed from his prone position. Right behind Abby came her mom, pushing her own stroller with another baby. That would be Abby's little sister - Charlie's niece.
For eight minutes I stretched the bounds of polite small-talk. We exchanged memories of the school before the recent remodeling. She asked about other teachers who have long since left for opportunities elsewhere. I strained to keep from asking if I might know Charlie's daddy. I didn't really want to know, after all. Then it was time to go. She promised to drop by again. As the strollers made their way down the hall, I tried to put together just how long she had stayed in school before the baby. Math told me that in a best-case-scenario, she would have been a sophomore in high school when she dropped out. If she made it that far.
Abby looked happy. Her baby looked healthy. I sat back down at my desk and finished grading fourth grade writing tests. If my luck holds, I'll probably be seeing Charlie again in about nine years.