More Than A Teacher

This last week my dad, a retired instrumental music teacher, was contacted by two sisters who were ex students of his over 25 years ago. These girls played in the band, but were also being abused at home. One of the girls said, "I would come into class with a heavy heart, and leave singing the song we had been playing." When my dad learned of the abuse, he did as he was supposed to, and reported it to the school counselors. Their mother denied that it was happening, but my dad knew it was true. He allowed them to stay in the band room after school to help out, (with other students there as well), and he just talked to them, counseled them, and taught them about life.

The two girls have been trying to find him for many years and found him on Facebook. They wrote thank you's and told him that he was so much more than a teacher, but a father figure, and a model of a Christian man. He never did the hard sell on his faith. He just lived it. And often had kids ask, "Are you a Christian?" When he said, "Yes" they would say, "I thought so."

There is a song by Dan Fogelberg, called "The Leader of the Band." It was about Fogelberg's own father, who was a cabinet maker's son, but chose the route of being a musician for himself. A line in that song says, "He had a gentle means of sculpting souls, that took me years to understand." It describes dad thoroughly. He also was a cabinet maker's son.

When these girls contacted dad, and thanked him profusely about all the things that he was to them, he just read it with tears in his eyes, and said, "I don't know what I really did. You just never know."

So I am grateful for a man, who I have the gracious gift of having for a father. Who saw teaching as so much more than what he taught in the classroom, and who made a huge difference, not only in his student's lives but in my own.