A lovely story

[fpb]

Hundreds of former and current students spent six months to organize a huge reunion in Rome to celebrate the retirement of their old elementary school teacher, Giovanna Bittoni, who reached the legal retirement age after forty years of unbroken service in the same school, Villa Paganini. Several made time to come from abroad, as far as China, and

Comments

[kikei]

That is beautiful. I'm thinking of my own primary school teacher, whom I spoke to after about 14-15 years last year... he is still teaching in the same school, and he has gone through so much but is still working away at it, helping children take their first steps in education and watching them walk away. He said he was touched by my email and was so happy to hear that I was writing professionally, especially since he had been feeling rather down and unappreciated at the time and to know that he made such an impact on one student's life was enough for him to know his foray into teaching was worth it.

But his own email to me... it floored me. He remembered everything about me, down to my favourite puppet from his collection. And this is so many years down the line.

One of the things I plan to do when I go to Hong Kong is visit my old school and seek him out. I want to tell him in person what he's done for me. I know I can't give presents on the scale of these students, but it certainly has inspired me to do something for the man who, unltimately, gave me the pieces I needed to understand my life... without even knowing it.

-Kiks