Jerry Freedman Appreciation Post

          It is a rare thing to find a friend you can pick up with as you left off years before; it is even rarer to find that in a mentor.   Honestly it is hard even to find a teacher who remembers you years later, let alone one that will seek you out when he is in town and get tea with you. That is Jerry Freedman.

          As I sat in a tea house covered in pink, purple, and blue fairy lights, my old high school AP U.S. History teacher and I discussed our lives, our kittens, my health and his memories.  He is one of those rare ones where ever story he tells is about someone in his life being miraculous.  He’s been teaching for the majority of his life, and is prouder of his students from all generations than most parents are of their children.  From coast to coast his students are in his life, both because we still long to make him proud, and because he still cares enough to be present.

          Two years ago when my Crohn’s Disease last flared, he visited me in the hospital.  I was in so much pain that I would shake uncontrollably, and lost so much weight from not being able to eat that I weighed less than I had in middle school.  I’m including a photo taken when he visited me.  You can see two the IVs I had in one hand because one wasn’t enough for all the medicine they were pumping into me.  You can notice that my extra small hospital gown was too big for my shoulders.  There’s my hospital bed, my IV pole, monitors; my hair is back because I didn’t have the strength or ability to shower.  You could observe all of this, and yet all you see is one thing: our smiles.   This is someone who saw me at my weakest and reminded me of my strength.

          That is more than a teacher, though I could still site for you everything from Thomas Paine to the Tulip Crisis.  More than that, I know songs from the Roarin' 20s, a ballet created in the 1930s depicting how the reality of the “everyman” is lost on those in power, and I’ll never forget a class presentation I did in the style of how Shakespeare plays were first performed.  I went to an arts high school, and his style of teaching was exemplary of how artists best learn.  I passed all of my standardized tests with flying colors, but more importantly to me now, I can find at least three linchpins of how what I learned from him lead to the person I am today.

          To quote our last great president: “when it comes to developing the high standards we need, it’s time to stop working against our teachers and start working with them…invest in our teachers and our children will succeed.”
          I am a success story because of Mr. Freedman.

Above: Tea at Alice's Tea Cup on 2.1.18; Below: Hospital smiles from December 2015

To Build A Home

And at last I stood on the outskirts of my struggle, staring at what had become my home.  From a distance I saw my once supportive beams, now fallen, splintered and harmful. I recalled how that roof over my head had become toxic, and how climbing out from under it had left me bruised and exhausted.

I was still sore, still sick and still on my own.

I finally realized that here I was, stuck in a pit of my own creation and my own demise. 

To fill it and rebuild sounded like more effort than it was worth.  I had fought so hard, and what had it been for?

This empty pit. This lot of nothing, a painful reminder of my efforts at construction that quaked into a wasted year.  I had already discovered this spot as turbulent and sterile, so why was I still trying to make it my home?

It took me a lot of time to see this clarity. It was as if I needed to escape the pit and wait for the dust to settle to finally see. And as soon as I did, I booked a flight and went back to my old loves. 

I wanted to look at my old home.  Though I did worry how much of its stability was rested upon the ex; was he the reason it hadn't collapsed?  And now without him, would it still be the stable home that I needed?

And the answer is yes. My friends, those coworkers turned to loves, are my beams of support and light, even helping me find more people to keep building up my life. 

Perhaps he was my windows, my guide to the outside world, but with the warmth of those I adore, my house is well heated enough not to need his glass panes. (And who really wants to rely so heavily upon something so fragile?)

Even as a visitor, I feel more at home here than I've felt in months.  Some had said well I only had a year to build that western home and yet I had the same time here. And between an empty pit and a cozy and warm cabin, there's only one choice:

Happiness. 

This is the city where I fell in love. With my love at the time, with my coworkers-turned-to-family, with my jobs, this city, my life and myself. 

So considering that in under a week a rediscovered more happiness than I found in a year, no, I don't want to go back to that pit.  

I didn't waste my time, as I learned there that no path is worth permanently leaving behind a home where you are happy..... I just wish I could have learned that without the constant struggle of this last year.  

So I'll see what it is like to go back to the pit.  And if it doesn't seem worth it, I know where my little cabin is, with loves waiting to adventure with me.