Storyteller: My 4th Grade Inspiration

When I was in the 4th-grade at Kilmer School, it was a skip, hop, and a jump from my house. I will never forget my 4th grade teacher, I’ll call her Ms. S. She spoke with a German accent and was as big as any man I had have ever seen.

She told the most fascinating stories during story time. The children would all sit on the floor of the classroom in a half-circle with our arms folded ready to listen to her passionately read from one of the books she carefully picked out for us. She had a way of reading the story that left me with my lower jaw hanging open and my heart pounding in anticipation and excitement. When she read you could tell she was excited too because spit would fly out of her mouth as she enunciated her words, so I learned not to sit too close to her. When story time was over she would always leave us hanging out on a cliff grappling trying to get back to the story the next day. This is where my passion begun to grow for reading, writing, and storytelling.

Sadly, one particular day Ms. S. didn’t show up to school. The next day, nor the next day, no teacher. All of the other teachers were shhh! shhh! about it. There was a lot of whispering among them. Regrettably, Ms. S. never came back to us and no one ever told us what happened to her. I guess they figured it was too traumatic for 9-year-olds to hear that she passed away. I didn’t figure out until years later that it had to be the reason for her to leave us so abruptly.  I just knew she loved us, but now it was up to us to finish our own story.

I finished my story by going to school to get my degree in journalism.  I love sharing my stories about faith, hope, and love.