Quiet Grace

In our class of 100+ fourth graders, it seems there are a 1,000,000+ personalities.

Allow me to introduce you to Stephanie, just one of our little personalities.

Stephanie... a sweet little girl with a huge heart. She is quick with a smile and even quicker with a hug. Absolutely filterless, she tells you every emotion she has just as she's having it. A little gem and a daily joy to her teachers.

On a day when I was feeling particularly down because one of my cats had been sick and we didn't have much time left with him, Steph showed up to school with a homemade necklace for me with three little cats dangling from it. She had no idea what was going on with me at home, but her little necklace is a treasure of mine now and forever. I have since lost my cat, but that necklace brings a smile to my face!

In addition to being loving and cheerful, this darling little girl is also an easy target for bullies.

She struggles both academically and socially. Her glasses sit crookedly on her face and both her gross motor and fine motor skills are not as developed as her peers. Almost everything we do in class is too challenging for her to complete independently. In a nutshell, she is different and pays dearly for it at school. She does have a best friend though.

Her dog Ruby.

Each day, Stephanie's mother and Ruby pick her up from school. We get to watch a little girl and her dog reunite as if they had been separated for months instead of hours. Stephanie runs to them, scoops the wiggly white puffball into her arms and just gets drenched in sloppy wet kisses.

One day, Steph's mom came with Ruby bouncing along to pick up their favorite little girl, and we noticed that Ruby was being walked on a rope tied around her neck instead of her usual pink harness and leash. Steph explained that her harness and leash were gone, but couldn't explain what had happened. Like most of the families at our school, their family doesn't have much  money so there would be no new harness or leash in their future.

The next day, Steph came up to me with an even bigger smile than usual on her face. In her hand she was clutching a pretty little light blue collar with rhinestones on it, brand new and cute as can be.

You see, Abby, the little girl who had been the target of a large group of bullies that I wrote about here, also noticed the rope around Ruby's neck so she spent her allowance on a new collar for her.

That was one happy little girl who stood before me!

Abby thought nothing about the gift. She saw someone in need and could fix her problem, so she did. "No need to thank me," she said. "It was the right thing to do."

The lessons these two little girls could teach others will most assuredly be lost on their peers, but their teachers will remember them forever.