Simply Lou

Oh, What A Beautiful Morning

article and illustration by LOU DAVENPORT

I have been going to “virtual church” the past month and a half, I think. What’s time these days anyway? (Now, I do put on my pearl earrings even though I may still have on my pajamas and have a cup of coffee in my hand.) The point is, I really like it. And, I really like the young preacher, Chad Brooks, at The Foundry.
I like him because every message I’ve heard has been about something useful, something practical and easy to understand. Today, he “got me,” when he talked about helping some young, very underprivileged children that the church had “adopted” during this past Christmas. There was one he spoke of that had really gotten to him, too. He brought me to tears; I mean big tears were streaming down my face.
My tears were from remembering how much my mama used to do for her little third graders. She taught third grade for at least 25 years until her sudden death. She always had given the little kids that were from the poorest part of Bastrop in her classroom.
The school she taught at was the one right in the middle of a district that had the lowest income families and the highest. I got to go there because she taught there. All us kids got along, but as I got older, I started to notice which kids my mama always got and who the other teachers got. It made me a bit angry at first, but, I figured it out. My mama was given those kids because those “in charge” knew full well, those kids NEEDED HER. And she loved every single one of her students unconditionally. I am still amazed by the things she did through the years… always for no credit; she never told anyone. She just did it. She never expected a praise, a pay raise, or a thank you.
I always remember this one little boy she knew was especially needy. But she saw something in him and she brought it out! There was always a third grade program for the P.T.A. meetings, as well as all the other grades. Mama played the piano so she pretty much “ran the show.”
This little boy named Wesley could sing and Mama knew it. She gave him a solo… ”Oh What a Beautiful Morning!” and he brought the house down. So tiny, so sweet, up on that big stage singing his little heart out. I’m crying right now just remembering it. (I hear that song in my head sometimes and yeah, I get tears.)
Mama knew he didn’t have any dress clothes, so she bought him some and a pair of new shoes. He was so handsome and so proud of his new clothes. That little boy, all dressed up in clothes he never had in his real life, right up on stage at West Side Elementary School, belting it out like a pro!
And….he did get a standing ovation!
I don’t know where Wesley is these days but I hope and pray it is somewhere good… a place where somebody loves and cares about him like my mama did.
I also hope and pray that I have some of “her” within me. She died on May 18, 1974 and there hasn’t been a day I haven’t thought of her; remembered something unselfish she did; how she loved her nieces and nephews, her students, her entire family and her large group of friends. I do believe she was one of God’s angels that he loaned me and many, many others for just a little while… and then he wanted her back. I get that. That is where I find comfort. That is how I have made it without her. She was my rock. And then, it was time for me to be “kicked out of the nest and fly on my own.”
Teaching “runs in my family.” Not only my mama, but also my grandmother, Mae Turner. Now, my own daughter, Carolyn, has been teaching for 23 years.
When she was a little girl, all she ever wanted to do was “play school.” I didn’t say, “Hey Carolyn, you want to play school?” She just did it! She’d line up her little books and her stuffed animals and dolls and she would “teach school!”
I see so much of my mama in her and how she cares so much for her students and how much she cares about the school where she chooses to teach. She’s always taught at “underserved” schools and she does it well. The rapport she has with her students makes me so proud. They love her, too! She’s always working on something to better her lessons, and her way of doing things for her school. She spends hours trying to make things better, not just for her students, but everyone else there, too. She does the same things for her students just like my mama did… things that she seeks no recognition for, no thank you’s, nothing except to do the right thing and help.
I finally got to teach for a few years myself. When my children were small, I was fortunate to be able to stay at home with them. My husband had a good income that allowed me to do that and I wouldn’t go back and change one thing. I kept painting and now I’m looking at 50 years of painting.
But later, he passed away and I remarried. After leaving that bad marriage, I was faced with finding a job, and I did all kinds of jobs to just “stay afloat. And then, a teaching job came my way.
I ended up teaching, too! I got to teach art at River Oaks School and I found I had that love for my kids just like my mama. I had a small cramped room and almost no budget but I made it work. I would jokingly say “we made art from garbage” and it was true. ( I almost became a “hoarder.”) But, me and those kids made some great art. I learned how to be very creative and to stay on my toes with all the 7th – 12th grade students I had. I loved those kids, and I still do.
I think I’ve done okay and I have made sure my kids certainly know their incredible grandmother by all the stories I’ve told them. Her spirit lives on and it lives on in them.
They know she had a great sense of humor and she was beautiful. But, they also know about her quiet generosity and unselfishness. Those kind of people don’t come around often and God sure blessed me to have her.” I just wanna be her when I grow up.” And, Mama, thanks for watching over all of us. I love you.
And to Wesley, wherever you are, I have never forgotten your solo… in fact, I do not remember one other song that the West Side Elementary School third grade presented to the P.T.A. on that night so long ago.
Many thanks to Chad Brooks for the inspiration for this column! Bless you!