Dear John,
You helped me, John. We ended up having tutoring sessions every day after school. You were an amazing teacher. You had endless amounts of patience. The numbers never made sense to me. I just couldn’t put it together.
You would never sigh. You never yelled. You never said how stupid I was. You just patiently explained to me how to do the problems again. Usually, you’d have to tell me and show me at least five times before I had a faint understanding.
I remember one day you noticed I was doing a crossword. You didn’t know that I loved puzzles. I remember you were surprised. By this point, you were talking to me more. We had begun to sustain conversations. Your tutoring brought you out of your shell. The best times I had ever talked to you, you were teaching.
I remember the day after you saw me with the crossword, you brought over puzzles. It was all different sorts. You taught me Morse code and had me decode messages. You have me decode a lot of codes. You brought mazes and Rubik’s Cubes. You brought me more crosswords. You even began to teach me a different language. It was Spanish. I really loved learning Spanish. It was like decoding a message.
After I had solved most of the problems, you had me stop. I remember protesting and complaining, but you smiled. I had never, ever, seen you smile before then. I remember getting a rush of happiness at seeing your smile.
“Math is just a big puzzle,” you said. “You can approach it in many different ways, just like how you did with these.” He motioned to all of the puzzles and books around me.
I remember nodding. I began thinking, John. I thought about how right you were.
You walked over to your worn backpack and unzipped the front zipper. You bent down and grabbed a package. You turned around and tossed it to me with a huge smile on your face. I was so surprised by your smile; I had almost forgotten to catch the present. I looked down, and it was a portable puzzle. It looked hollow, and I shook it. There was a clanging in it. I turned it around as I felt a ridge. There was an engraftment on it.
It said something I will never forget, John.
“Life is a puzzle. Some people figure it out, but some are so wrapped up in its clues, they don’t see the big picture. The clues are meant to help, not confuse.”
I stared at you with a smile. You smiled back and then said, “Opposite of what Adams had for George.” I was confused. But I shook it off as weird nonsense you usually said.
At that moment, I didn’t care that I was Mr. Popular. I didn’t care that you were some poor kid. It didn’t matter at all, John. Because I finally saw you for what you were. You were John, a good man. You were John, the teacher. You were John.
I remember my eyes tearing up, John. I wanted to cry; something I hadn’t done since my father had died when I was eight.
You made me do math problems. And for the first time in my life, I understood.
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