Category: Letters

A Tree For My Friend

On By Alicia McCauleyIn Letters11 Comments

Dear Friend,

I bought you a tree today.

It’s a Zelkova Serrata, a tree known for strength and resistance to disease. As I ran my hand down the gray trunk, I thought of you and how hard it must have been to say goodbye, to let your father go. I thought of how quickly cancer consumed his strength.

There aren’t words to express how sorry I am for you. Every word feels meager in the pallid face of such staggering grief.

Thankfully when there aren’t words, there are trees.

The Zelkova Serrata can grow to be 100 feet tall with a crown that stretches wide to provide shady relief in the heat of Summer. In Spring it has pale yellowish green flowers.

The Zelkova Serrata is known by furniture makers for the beauty in its bold grain, but I think its real beauty comes in Fall when it covers the ground in a blush of red, yellow and purple leaves.

You’ve wanted this tree for some time and it’s fitting then that there was only one of these trees available in the whole city. One singular tree. Your tree. Tall and full of healthy buds ready to wake from dormancy.

I put the top down in my car and drove the tree to your house, my hair and the branches whipping in the wind. We were quite a sight, me and your tree sitting tall in my Mini Cooper. The man at the nursery tied a plastic red flag to one of the branches and as I drove to you I could see the red flag snapping in my rearview mirror like a lone prayer flag.

Sadness was etched in your face today, dear friend, and I felt silly as I stared at my shoes and explained that I’d brought you a tree.

The tree houses my wishes for you.

I wish that it provides cool shade and respite. I wish that months from now, when your grief has begun to ease, you’ll delight in the beauty of its colors. I wish that when you look out at the tree, you’ll remember the love between you and your dad, love that is strong, love that is impervious to disease and death. And each spring as new buds press out through the branches, I wish that you find renewed strength.

I bought you a tree today. And somehow in my cavernous lacking of the right words to comfort you, the silent branches of the tree said it all for me.

With love,
Your friend and a tree

An Open Letter to the Girl Scouts of America

On By Alicia McCauleyIn Letters4 Comments

Dear Girl Scouts of America,
Let me begin by saying I’m a big, BIG fan. I love your uniforms and your sashes covered in bright patches for doing things that make our world a better place. And I’m not at all jealous of those patches, which make the nine patches I earned as a wee Brownie look unimpressive. Nope, not at all jealous. Or bitter.

In fact I have fond memories of dressing up in my Brownie regalia and singing about gold and silver friends.  Although to tell you the truth, my friends don’t actually like it when I point out that they’re only a silver friend.  That would have been a helpful verse.

Make new friends,

but keep the old.

Be sure not to tell the silvers

they’re not gold.

Speaking of brownies, I love any organization that lets you start out being called a sweet treat. In fact it’s a trend I think you should continue up the ranks. First you’re a Brownie, then a Samoa, then a Thin Mint, etc., until you reach the pinnacle of your Girl Scoutness and become at long last a hallowed Tagalong, by far the most superior of all your cookies.

image courtesy of lightgreenstairs.com

It’s your cookies that have prompted me to write this letter.  I love the cookies.  I ate some for breakfast this morning after a well-balanced dinner, of course.  I have just one teensy, tiny problem with the cookies: the serving sizes on the boxes are wrong.  I’m not sure who’s in charge of the packaging, but they need to spend some time crunching numbers and crunching some cookies.  It is a well-known fact that a serving size of Thin Mints is one sleeve.  Equally well-known is the fact that a box of Tagalongs is a single serving in itself.  Please, darling Girl Scouts, speak to the powers that be and remedy this misinformation quickly.  I’m sure this extremely important act of public service will earn you a shiny new patch for your sash.

Sincerely,

Alicia, former Brownie

Letters to Little Ones: Coming Back

On By Alicia McCauleyIn Letters, Teacher Tales2 Comments

Dear Little One,

Sometimes you make me want to tear my hair out.  Not all of it, but some of it.  Not all of the time, but some of the time.  I have a feeling you feel like tearing your hair out some of the time, too, because navigating the world with autism is tough.  I know that and surely you do, too.  This is why instead of tearing my hair out, I breathe and you breathe and then we breathe together until we figure out a way to get from one thing to the next.

Disclaimer: This is a stock photo.

Lately you’ve been yelling at me.  Strike that.  You’ve been yelling at me all the time.  It’s partly because anger is one of two emotions you understand, but also because you don’t have a firm grasp on voice modulation.  When I point out that you’re yelling and that you may not realize it, you shift into a somewhat calmer voice for a sentence or two until you forget and start yelling again.  And then I remind you again.  And so our dance goes, a halting two sentence two-step.

Little One, the occasions when you’ve spoken softly of your own volition are a rarity I can count on one hand.  And I do count them because every little success matters.  You speak in whispers when you’re afraid, like when you slipped your hand into mine at the field trip where we watched dancers, white like angels, and you told me you were afraid that the devil was going to come out next.  Scary stuff worthy of your whisper for sure.

Today I reminded you that you’d have a guest teacher for the next couple of days and that we’d see each other again after Thanksgiving vacation.  You misunderstood and when we hugged goodbye, you whispered “You’re leaving?  I’m not going to see you again?”

My heart broke into brittle pieces, Little One, because you are so afraid of your loved ones leaving you.  I assured you I’d be back and we’d see each other again in a few days and you whispered “I don’t like this.”  I could hear the fear in your voice.

Little One, I’m not leaving you.  Even when you make me want to pull my hair out, I will come back.  Even when I have to take deep breath after deep breath, I will come back.  Even when you spend the whole day learning not to yell, I will come back.  When you come to me with anger, or frustration, or fear, I will do my best to come back with patience, consistency and love.

Know this, Little One, you are worth coming back for.

It breaks my heart that someone you love doesn’t think so.  And it tears me to bits that you associate loving with leaving.

And so I will spend the rest of our time together this year proving that I will always come back to you.  I will always come back for you.

Little One, I will always come back because of you.

Love,

Mrs. McCauley

Letters to Gramma: You’ll Never Guess

On By Alicia McCauleyIn Letters to Gramma4 Comments

Dear Gramma,

You’ll never guess what someone asked me for today.  Never in a million, katrillion, quadfillion years.

I was quietly checking my e-mail this morning while walking to work.  And there it was staring at me in my inbox.  A request from another teacher.

Know what she needed?  I’m in fits of giggles just thinking about it.  Seriously, you’ll never guess.

She needed to borrow a mini trampoline!  Can you believe it?  A mini trampoline of all things!  I know, I’m dying laughing, too.

In about 0.2 seconds I e-mailed her back telling her she could borrow yours mine yours.

After school she drove me home and on the drive I told her about how you used to “train” for your trips by trampolining.  Sorry to put “train” in air quotes, Gramma, but I just can’t say it with a straight face.  We were cracking up just at the thought.

When you died, that’s why I wanted your trampoline so badly in the first place.  It makes me smile every time I look at it and remember you bouncing, ahem, “training”, on it.

Wait, I’m snickering too much.  I have to stop and take a breath for a sec.

Ahhh.  Better.

After hearing the story of how I came to possess your trampoline, my colleague said she didn’t want to take the trampoline because she was afraid something might happen to it.  I told her that’s the very reason she should take it.  Something might happen to it.  Something laugh out loud hilarious might happen to it.

You see, my colleague is going to use it in a spirit assembly that involves kids wearing superhero capes and doing silly tricks and eating disgusting foods.  I told her that assembly is just the kind of thing that would’ve made you laugh.

So you should know that on Friday afternoon a bunch of middle school kids are going to be jumping and bouncing and having a ton of fun on your old trampoline.

And when I get it back I might just take a jump or two before putting it back in the closet.  Gramma, you always made me laugh.  You’re still making me laugh.

I love you like crazy,

Alicia

Oh So Many Apology Letters

On By Alicia McCauleyIn LettersLeave a comment

Dear New Sweater,

I’m sorry for catching you in the paper cutter.  Twice.  Ahem.  I’m amazed that, try as I might, I could not cut your fabric.  I mean really, you look so light and airy, but apparently you’re made of Kevlar.  Who knew I’d be getting such protection for $20.  I will now stop trying to chop you to smithereens.

Sincerely,

The girl who shouldn’t be allowed to use sharp objects

P.S.  I’m also sorry for the spaghetti sauce splattering incident at lunch.  You’re a white sweater, you had to see that coming, no?

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Dear Terry,

I’m sorry that ice cream, cereal and salads are the extent of my dinner menu.  Thankfully you make a mean batch of vanilla pancakes or we would probably starve.

XOXO,

Your domestically challenged wife

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Dear Rocket,

I’m sorry I haven’t taken you out for a spin for a few weeks.  The cobwebs in your spokes are reprehensible.  I’m profoundly sorry and look forward to a reunion soon.  Please, please don’t buck me off in bitterness the next time we meet.

Love,

Alicia

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Dear Dentist,

I’m sorry I was a whiny baby in the chair.  In my defense you had to fix things in 3 of the 4 quadrants of my mouth.  And let’s face it, nobody likes to hear “I think I can do this one without numbing you.”  You’re right, it didn’t hurt, but the anticipation of pain caused buckets of perspiration to build up in my armpits and seep onto the chair.  Please accept my apologies for all the whimpering and, no doubt, for the extra time spent mopping up after me.

Kind regards,

Me and my new and improved molars