Impact

How do you tie up a year of teaching second grade in China?

I’ve been asking myself this since the beginning of the semester.

How do you say goodbye like this?

I’m still pondering the question and I’ve already done it.

Finished.

Complete.

Done.

I don’t think I’ve realized yet that it actually happened--that it’s actually over.

How do you end relationships with hundreds of little children you love and adore, and who love and adore you, knowing that you’ll never see them again? Knowing that you’ll be in America, and they’ll be in China, and even if there were some way for you to keep in touch, you couldn’t  communicate effectively because you don’t speak the same language?

My heart hurts.

I think back to last year when I was unsure about coming to China, when I thought why on earth am I going to do this and HOW will I teach children who don’t speak my language?

That was when I didn’t understand the difference it would make.

Now I can’t imagine not doing this.

I’ve learned and grown from little people who communicated love to me through gestures, smiles, hugs, and high-fives. I lit candles and planted seeds in children I can’t even hold a 5-minute conversation with.

Some of them will forget me, some will remember me as a novelty, some will vaguely think back on the blonde lady who played games in class—but some will hold onto memories of Miss Love, the foreign teacher who hugged them, laughed with them, played with them on the playground, and told them she loved them. They will remember kindness and love. And some—maybe even just a handful—will remember her mentioning the most important thing in her life when she taught about her life in America—something that might’ve been what made her so very different from other people they knew (apart from her blonde hair and big eyes).

I don’t know what they’ll remember, and I may never know what the impact of this year was, but I do know that our lives will never be the same for having known each other.

And I know, at least, that my heart looks different than it used to.

Saying goodbye to my babies was the hardest thing I’ve done since coming to China.

One day my heart will heal back up and be broken again by other students, and one day I won’t be able to put names with faces anymore—but I will remember the love that was shared with the precious babies I taught this year.

And some of them will remember it, too.