Dear Mrs. Thompson,
Today I went on to Facebook to see if you had a profile, so I could add you as a friend. I suppose I could have just taken the few seconds to find you in my phone’s contacts, but I was curious about whether or not any of my other elementary school teachers had made the transition to Facebook and then I thought, well damn, let me see if Mrs. Thompson has one. I looked once and wasn’t able to find anything and, at first, I thought, well yeah, Mrs. Thompson wouldn’t have one, but I searched again anyway—this time with ‘Donna Thompson Seattle’. I found some people that weren’t you and then I scrolled down a little further to a group that read “Donna (Flynn) Thompson Memorial”, immediately thinking that it was a memorial for someone else that just so happened to share your name. But in the thumbnail, I got this really queasy feeling because the woman in the picture sort of looked like you. But it couldn’t have been you. So I clicked on the group page. When the page opened I felt like someone had taken a bowling ball and swung it into my stomach. There you were in two header photos, one of which took me back to the times of elementary school and the other, the thumbnail photo, which apparently was you, with who I assume to be your husband and I would imagine to be your kids.
I’m not sure I knew what to do after this. I think I looked outside and then I craned my head backward and then forward again and then to the sides not quite knowing where to look. Like all sick feelings that seem to grow sicker and fester like a wildfire through all parts of your body, I began to get really, really sad. Now I know what you’re thinking, I’ve used ‘but’ at the beginning of two sentences and I just used the word ‘sad’ and these were things that you surely taught me not to do, but forgive me, I just can’t help it right now. It was a wave of reality that continued to crash and crash and with every subsequent thrashing I refused to acknowledge the truth, albeit weaker, until finally it seemed to wash over me fully.
I had the extraordinary privilege of being in your second grade class at B.F. Day Elementary School and if that wasn’t enough, I was gifted another opportunity to be your student in third grade. My sister was also afforded the same luxury when she attended B.F. Day several years before You were mainly a third grade teacher, if I’m not mistaken, but there were a a handful of us that were put into your class in both second and third grades and when I say that this was quite possibly one of the things I’m most grateful for during my time here on this earth, you have to know that it’s true. You look back on those times and you’re lucky to remember even the momentary blips that you can. The way your handwriting graced the blackboard. The way you showed us how ours was supposed to fit finely on the page. Maybe it was the science experiments or the opportunities to create our own books with a diverse array of covers to choose from. Maybe it was how your fandom matched mine—your fondness for the University of Michigan football team and mine for the Seattle Mariners, which is something I think we both seemed to share. Maybe it was how you made me believe I was decent at Math, that I really excelled at something, and the way you made us feel like we all excelled at something, and then how you tempered our excitement and rowdiness at times with this firm discipline that kept the class under control and even keeled. But maybe it was the way you allowed us to be free, the way you allowed us to learn so much and yet enjoy the newness and growing riches of life that only eight or nine year olds could possibly know. How we can develop crushes one moment and then read out loud in front of the class the next. Or how you seemed to cultivate this wonderful environment of kids who enjoyed being with each other, enjoyed participating with one another, and genuinely knew how lucky they were to be there with you at the helm.
Do you remember how you put those little cut-outs of all of our pictures up on your board? I’m not sure how long that tradition had existed, but that does something to a kid to be honored in that way. You feel special. What else do I remember? I think it was your class that had the chart with the six or seven traits of good writing, wasn’t it? The word choice, ideas, organization, sentence fluency, conventions, voice. Am I forgetting one? I know that that chart was in your class. I really wish I remembered more.
It was one of those things where you go to school the next year and the next year and you wonder why you can’t just go back to Mrs. Thompson’s class. I want to believe I told you one time, and if I didn’t I know I told my parents on countless occasions, that I wish I could have had you as my teacher every year. K-12. Just Mrs. Thompson again and again. Or if anything, if I was struggling one year in a different class, that you could work your magic, settle me down, make me learn what I couldn’t or hadn’t, and save the day. You had that super power. You came to my Bar Mitzvah. In middle school, I made sure to go back at least a couple of times to help you out. I think I have a picture somewhere of me cleaning the famous blackboard. It almost seemed like a crime to wash your handwriting off the wall.
And then there was this period where I didn’t reach out to you. It wasn’t for a lack of thinking about you, your impact, or your class. It was just one of those strings of years where you lose touch a little bit, you get distracted, and fall victim to the stuff that’s ahead of you. Every so often, in conversations with my mom, my dad, and my sister we would talk of having you over for dinner. We had to honor you in some way and we hoped to all get together to make it happen. And it just kept getting pushed back and pushed back and talked about and agreed that it would be a great idea, but we never were able to manifest anything. When I graduated college, I started to think about that divine possibility again, but realized that we had no way of reaching you. I asked around and then I think I called B.F. Day who forwarded the message that we were trying to get in touch with you. I don’t remember quite when we established the communication anew, but I remember being in eastern Washington, Pullman I think, with the Seattle Shakespeare touring troupe and we had just finished getting some food or ending a show, and I got a call from an unknown number and I picked it up. And I found out it was you! It was like a buried candle that still existed in the depths of memory was reignited. I was so excited and overwhelmed and emotional that everyone in the car was wondering who I possibly could be talking to. Man, I remember that phone call like it was yesterday. It was so, so good to hear from you, to hear how you were. I had to have mentioned a plan for a future get together and to hear that you were open to it made me feel so good that I couldn’t wait to relay it to my family that the honorable Mrs. Thompson could join us for dinner!
It seemed to be delayed, completely our fault, because I for one didn’t think it would be right to have the dinner unless all of us could be there. What a lousy, lousy mistake that was. Then, in 2016, during a slow day at Sundance Cinema I was working concessions and a few people came to the counter and asked for some food and, at first, I didn’t process it, but then I saw your face and asked if it could be you, and you said it was, and once again, pure joy and happiness ran over me. I think you had injured your arm because if I remember correctly you had a cast on one of them, so I made sure to hug you lightly and softly, and I really wish that you could feel the affection and the gratitude and the love in that hug and I hope that my mom and dad and sister’s energy were transported in it too because that was unfortunately the last time I saw you.
Then I moved to New York a few months later and I swear to you that most times when I would come back or was anticipating a return to Seattle I would talk to my mom and dad and see if there were opportunities to make that dinner happen. It just had to at some point.
So, you can imagine what came over me when I found out you were gone. It’s like every word you ever taught me suddenly vanished. Like every piece of air in my body had been snatched. I still feel sick. In more ways than you know, Mrs. Thompson. I will forever regret not having you over for dinner, if nothing else, to spend the whole time telling you how much I appreciate you and love you and how I will always appreciate and love you. And how I will always hold you as the gold standard for any teacher. Because you showed me what type of impact a teacher could have on someone. You were a superhero. You are a superhero. In every way.
I’m sorry that it has been almost three years since your passing and that I am just finding out about it today. I am sorry and regretful beyond measure that I didn’t know. And that I didn’t check in. And that I didn’t pay my respects by coming to Oregon for your Celebration of Life. I swear to you that I would have been there. I hope that you can forgive me.
Mrs. Thompson, wherever you are, on whichever soft cloud in heaven you happen to be relaxing on, I hope you are at peace.
I hope you have all the archival Michigan Football Team tapes at your disposal and I hope you have a special stream just for you when they’re playing down here. I always imagine you rooting for them in the sea of blue at the Big House.
I hope you have the opportunity to shine your light on all the kids who lost their lives too soon, so they can get a proper opportunity to learn from the best.
I hope you are resting easy and pain free. I know you wouldn’t like me using this language, but Fuck Cancer.
We love you down here and will forever keep your memory alive.
GO BLUE!
2nd Grade
3rd Grade