A Child's First Teacher | The Jose Vilson

A Child's First Teacher | The Jose Vilson:

A Child’s First Teacher

 [Today’s special guest is Anthony Mullen, 2009 Teacher of the Year and awesome writer. Feel free to tell us what you think about his post in the comments below.]

Spring is in the air and I am surrounded by death. The countless small white headstones seem so clean, neat, tidy – each a small but insignificant reminder that a person once lived. I come here often but still get lost among the sea of stones. An old oak tree stood tall near my mother’s grave until a hungry fungus made it as lifeless as the departed who lie beneath my feet.

I have come to this vast military cemetery to visit my mother’s grave. She was married to a United States Marine who fought in the Second World War, and every soldier is entitled to a small piece of the land they once defended. I miss the shade and comfort of the familiar oak tree, but a map provided by the visitor center led me to her gravestone.

Sarah Mullen
April 8 1930
May 3 1970
Wife of PFC John Mullen
USMC World War II

My mother’s stone is cold and hard and completely still. It brings me no solace as I touch its weathered surface because I can no longer hold her the hand that bears the stone’s name. I last saw my Mom as she lay dying on our kitchen floor. I thought she had fainted because the oven door was open and the room was very hot. I did not know that a cerebral artery burst and had taken her life, forever leaving a nine-year-old boy puzzled about the role serendipity played in death.

My mother’s funeral mass was crowded with friends and family, and my hurriedly purchased suit did not fit well. I remember staring at her casket and wondering if she was wearing her favorite blue dress. I wanted to open the casket and place a photograph of my brother and me in her hands but was afraid to look at a dead person. I watched the hearse take my mother away to a place called Long Island, and later was taken to a neighbor’s house. I always regretted not leaving the pew and placing the photograph in my mother’s hands.

The Scots are strange mourners. Some treat the dead as though they have never left, and others pretend the dead never lived. I grew up never seeing a photograph of my mother or learning A Child's First Teacher | The Jose Vilson: