Mother Teresa :)

Her signature is the only signature besides mine in the 1977 Bulldog Annual. “Teresa Claunts”, right under my name “Lichea Templeman”, a name that was mine for so long…but now looks so foreign to me.

  My bus ride was an hour from the mountains to the little town of Waldron, Arkansas. Mr. Willie Brigance was my busdriver, an elderly, sweet man that would let me sit on the heater beside him on cold mornings until the town kids got on. “Here come the town kids, little lady. Better scoot.” and I’d scoot into one of the front seats. I wanted desperately to sit in the back with my aunt Muff and uncle Skee and cousins Ricky, Jerry, Randy and Gayla. They laughed and talked and joshed around and it looked so fun. Sometimes one of them…for a brief, shining and wonderful moment…would sit by me and visit. Skee would ask me questions about what I was studying or what boy I thought was cute and I would redden and put my head down. But for the most part, I stared out the window and made stories up in my head or sang songs to myself.

  My first day of first grade, my aunt muff (who was 10 at the time) showed me to my class, then hurried off to her own, which was in a building across the street. I felt so lost and everything was so foreign. The only kids I had ever been around were my cousins. I stood there in my homemade dress, carrying my book satchel that my mom had carefully printed my name on, the other kids in wild t shirts and hip hugger jeans. It was 1976.

  I had begged mom all summer before school started to teach me how to read. She informed me that I needed to learn that in school. I had learned to pick out some words and sound them out..asking her once where Eggiepite” was. “Eggiepite?” My mom asked. “yes. Eggiepite”. She stared at me over the dish she was drying with an old towel. “What are you trying to read?” she asked. Then it occurred to her. “are you reading the Bible?” “Yes! The bible!” I shouted. “what’s Eggiepite?” She laughed at me for a second. “oh, honey. It’s EGYPT.” I repeated it to myself, running back to the big family bible, flipping through the pictures. I yelled EGYPT every time I saw it.

  Mom assured me they would teach me to read. I would stare at books, picking out the words I knew, bugging grownups to help me with the bigger words. That was my goal. I told my granny, my papaw, my cousins…”they’re gonna teach me to READ. Mom said so.” They’d smile and agree.

  So Muff led me to my class and I found my name on a table that seated 6, with 6 tables arranged in a U shape, the front of the class up front and center.  I sat down and waited to be taught how to read. All day, they taught us where the bathrooms were, how to open our milk, how to get to our bus, where to hang our coats.How to not get caught under the merry go round and get trampled to death.  All day I waited. No books. No reading.

  I fumed all the way home on the bus. When I got off the bus, I ran into the house, crying. Mom didn’t even get to ask me how my day was before I yelled at her “YOU SAID THEY’D TEACH ME HOW TO READ AND THEY DIDN’T. YOU LIED.”

   Mom laughed and said “honey! you don’t learn to read in one day. It takes a long time to learn to read and even longer to learn big words.”

  I sighed and went to find Bobbie and Ray to tell them all about my day. I enthralled them with the stories of the merry go round and the swings and the little boy named Kevin who wore a t shirt with a motorcycle on it, coming in loud and boastful.

  By the next morning, I had resigned myself to my fate and trod into my class room. I sat down at my seat. We were each given a letter. I was the letter E. We were supposed to come up when it was our turn in the alphabet. Some kids didn’t know the alphabet and often when  it was someone’s turn to go up, they wouldn’t know. I thought I would help the little boy sitting near me who didn’t seem to know and I nudged him. He did not appreciate this and yelled at me. I was getting so bored, as I knew the alphabet and we kept saying it OVER and OVER for each letter that went up. We finally got through it and moved on to coloring.

  That afternoon, a little girl sat by me on the bus. I had seen her at recess, with her dark hair, dark eyes, and sprinkling of freckles across her nose. I found her fascinating, as I only knew blonde, fair skinned people. She was shy and so was I, but before long we were visiting. We talked and laughed all the way to her house, which was just outside of town. It was too soon and I thought about how fun she was all the way home. I told Bobbie and Ray about my new friend, but didn’t know her name.

  The next day, she got on the bus and looked for me and sat down beside me. I saw on her notebook “Teresa Claunts”. I said “is your name Teresa Clounce?” mispronouncing it. “no, silly” she giggled. “Teresa CLAUNTS.” I repeated it to myself to not forget.

  We talked about her family and house. I asked her if her bathroom was inside or outside. She looked at me funny. “inside.” she finally said. “mine’s outside. It doesn’t have a door.” I said.  She found this hilarious so I told more stories about the pigs and cows and Bobbie falling in a sewer and Ray riding the cows. Everything I said made her laugh. She told me about her older siblings and cousins, funny stories that made me laugh too.

  One day she got on the bus with a tiny Bible, a New Testament. She turned it to John 3:16 and we read it together. She had it memorized. I didn’t, but soon I did and we  were saying it to each other that cold, winter day on that old rickety bus, sitting as near to the heater as we could. I don’t see that verse that I don’t think of her, her dark, smiling eyes and shy smile, repeating that verse with me.

  We weren’t in the same class. I was in Miss Lowry’s class, the most beautiful teacher in the world. She wore sparkling jewelry and makeup and smelled like flowers. She never yelled, was always beautiful and nice. I wanted to be her and paint my toenails to match my creamy polyester pantsuits. Teresa was in Mrs. Anderson’s class and had other friends beside me. She would run up to me at recess with a few friends in tow and grab my hand and we’d run to the swings. One glorious fall afternoon, she and I were swinging in tandem, together in the same rhythm. We tried to grab hands, but kept missing. We dared each other to jump, but chickened out. I remember thinking “Teresa is my best friend I’ll ever have.” I wanted to say it, but…how does a 6 year old say that? so I looked at her and said “I’ll never forget this.” She said “ummm…ok…wanna go to the merry go round?” We jumped off the swings and ran toward the merry go round, laughing and shrieking.

  Finally, they taught me to read and after that… I wanted to do nothing else. In my reading group, I read my whole book the first night. My teacher didn’t believe me at first, but asked me all the questions at the end of each story. I got them all right. That was the end of that reading group and I was put alone to read old reading books and answer questions on my own. Eventually, they ran out of books and I just had to sit with my original group, bored out of my skull.

  The year came and went, then summer..then second grade. Teresa and I still weren’t in the same class, but continued to sit by each other on the bus and play together at recess. 

  Then came the news from my mother we were moving. I would have to change schools…and leave the mountains…leave my aunts and uncles…my granny and papaw. My church, where my whole family went and I sang all the songs by heart at the top of my lungs.  Teresa.

  I told her on the bus the next day. She got very quiet and so did I. I felt my throat choke and I turned my head to the window. I squinted back tears. We rode in silence and I stayed to myself on the playground that day,  taking a book with me.

  We moved to Booneville, just a few miles away…but it might as well been a million miles. We had no phone and had made no plans to write. Once, we went to Waldron for something and we drove past Teresa’s house. It was a Saturday. Teresa and her brother were outside. I yelled “there she is!” mom pulled into the drive way. Teresa bounced over to the car. We hugged. Her parents came outside and invited us in. We immediately ran to play and held hands and giggled. Shortly, my mom came to get me and Teresa and I promised to try to see each other soon.

  That was the last time I saw her. We moved from Booneville…to Coalgate, Oklahoma…back to Booneville…Back to Oklahoma…I never forgot her. I would ask my aunt Muff if she saw her and she said “Sometimes..want me to tell her you said hi?” I thought of lots of things I wanted to tell her, (did she remember the bus? John 3:16? The wind in our hair, covering our laughing faces on the swings, the sun in our eyes?)  but just looked at Muff and nodded. “yeah…tell her hi.” I said.

  I never forgot her, her dark, thick hair and dark eyes. Her shy smile. Her funny way of saying things.  A few years ago, I searched for her on the internet, never finding her.

  Then came facebook. One of my dearest friends from high school, Charla, married a man from Waldron. On a hunch, I searched through her friend list for “Teresa”. I found one. “Teresa Singleton”. Dark hair. Dark, smiling eyes. Sweet, shy smile. I knew it was her.  I looked at her info and saw it. “Claunts”.

  I sent her a message and friend request. I told her who I was…she didn’t remember me. That’s ok. I did enough remembering for the both of us.

 

  Then the other day, she reposted my blog saying “one of my friend’s blogs, I enjoy reading very much, thought you may also!” I thanked her and told her one day I would tell my story of her. She said she would love to hear it, that her memory has gone kaput since she’s had kids. Oh, sigh. I understand. My brain is often mom mush, too.

  When researching a little bit for this story, I went to her facebook profile and looked at her info. She quotes one of my favorite bible verses, Ephesians 4:31. “Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.”
  Then…right under that..in her bio, she has “I work hard at giving my children wonderful memories to look back on when they grow up.”

  Oh, dear Teresa. You didn’t know how early you started. Giving children wonderful memories goes way back for you. J