My Dear Companion

Because I had to take a sick day, I was able to assign the kids one of my favorite songs and projects for while I was away.  We sing a beautiful song, "My Dear Companion" and then the students write letters to people in their lives that they miss, or who moved away, or who are gone for one reason or another.  This time I wrote an exemplar for the first time that I read to them, instead of using exemplars of other students' work, and I think it made a difference.  Here I insert the Exemplar.

                    Exemplar for My Dear Companion                     11/2/2018
LETTER TO SOMEONE I NO LONGER SEE

Dear Betty,
Things have changed around here, you wouldn’t believe it if you saw it.  So many things have happened since you went away, since you transformed and moved on.  I will try to fill you in, so if you ever return, you will know what to expect. 

First of all, our mutual friend actually retired two years ago from teaching fifth grade.  I thought it would be the end of the world as we know it.  However, he wasn’t actually gone that long.  The following fall he began substituting, and now he is a full-time ed tech.  I don’t see him much, because he works upstairs now, but last year he was in my class most days, and I really appreciated his help with the students.  I never forget to write him a poem every year for his birthday, and it always has to do with you, and our threesome, and often all the times we had together all those years here.  The poems make me both grateful, and sad: Grateful because of what we had together for all those years, and sad that it is gone..like the colors of the leaves in autumn, the roses in spring, the way babies smell when they are newborn, the beginning of every new friendship. 

Well, time has flown since you moved on, and I have become a grandmother! Four times already!  I have three little girls that are strong and healthy and beautiful and one gorgeous baby boy.  Olive and April are seven and four, and live in Chicago, and Sibby and Wilder are 21 months and 1 month old, and live in Brooklyn, NY.  Louis has become a fifth grade teacher, (can you believe it?? Remember when he was just a little boy in middle school, waffle-eating his way through life?) Sarah is a high school teacher at a charter school on the south side of Chicago, David is still a professor, and Chloe is staying home with her babies at this writing.  They all came home for my big birthday celebration this summer, and they always visit me in the summer and at Christmas time at the old farm house in Kennebunk.  They are amazing and interesting and brilliant people, and three of them have partners/wives/husbands that are also equally as brilliant and amazing and interesting.

I am still teaching music here at YMS, but I don’t teach chorus anymore the way I used to.  Instead, I play piano for chorus, and play at the concerts.  You should see the beautiful new auditorium and the amazing piano that they bought for the concerts there, I love playing it and I love hearing the students sing, they are incredible!!  So much talent in this town, so many kind and intelligent students, so much to learn from them!  I wish you were still here to work with them, it just hasn’t been the same since you moved on.  I miss you terribly, but I think of you every single day, and all of my work is inspired by all the things you taught me about life, love, kindness, bravery, courage, humor, and the meaning of life.  I wish you were here, and will always wish you were here. 

All my love,
Susan

Hope it helps with the idea if you want to use it in your classroom..