Todays Helping of Chicken Soup for the Soul

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Lessons on Napkins

By Caurie Anne Miner

In 1974, my mother was a junior at an all-girls Catholic college in New

York. She was an excellent student and wanted to be a special education

teacher. But, her dreams of becoming a teacher were interrupted by an

unexpected child: her own. My mother became pregnant with me during her

junior

year of college and left school to marry my father. Yet even though my

mother

left the field of education formally, she did not leave it entirely.

When I was born, my mother immediately made learning an integral and

fun

part of my life. Everything we did was a positive learning interaction,

whether

we were baking cookies or spending the day at the library. I never watched

television, not because I was not allowed to, but because it was more fun

writing stories with my mom. There was never a lot of money in our home,

but

with all of the books, laughter and hugs, it was a scarcity I never felt.

When I finally entered a school classroom at age five, I was excited,

but

terrified. That first day of kindergarten I quietly sat at my desk during

snack

time and opened my Miss Piggy lunch box. Inside the lunch box I found a

note

from my mother written on a napkin. The note said that she loved me, that

she

was proud of me and that I was the best kindergartner in the world! Because

of

that napkin note I made it through my first day of kindergarten...and many

more

school days to follow.

There have been many napkin notes since the first one. There were

napkin

notes in elementary school when I was struggling with math, telling me to

" Hang

in there, kiddo! You can do it! Don't forget what a great writer you are! "

There were napkin notes in junior high school when I was the " new girl " with

frizzy hair and pimples, telling me to " Be friendly. Don't be scared.

Anyone

would be lucky to have you as her best friend! " In high school, when my

basketball team was the first team in our school's history to play in a

state

championship, there were napkin notes telling me, " There is no 'I' in team.

You

have gotten this far because you know how to share. " And, there were even

napkin notes sent to me in college and graduate school, far away from my

mother's physical touch. Despite the tumultuous changes of college ?

changing

majors, changing boyfriends, changing the way I looked at the world ? my one

constant was my mother's encouragement, support and teachings, echoed in

years

of love, commitment and napkin notes.

My nineteen-year-old sister is now a college sophomore. Somewhere in

her

dorm room, amid her varsity basketball uniform and her nursing books, she

has a

box of well-read napkin notes hidden, but accessible. At home, my

sixteen-year-

old sister and nine-year-old brother also have their own private stashes of

napkin notes. When they read them I know they feel the same warm surge of

confidence that I felt all through my school years.

For Christmas this year, my mother received a book bag, a daily

planner,

notebooks and a full-tuition college scholarship. These gifts reflected an

impending change in her life. After a twenty-five-year hiatus, my

forty-four-

year-old mother was finally going back to school to earn her degree in

teaching.

And although I was immensely proud of my mother for following her dreams, I

wanted her to know that she didn't need a degree to make her a stellar

teacher.

So I also gave her a Christmas gift for school: a lunch bag filled with

her

favorite foods. She laughed as she opened the lunch bag and took out cans

of

tuna fish and V-8. Then she pulled out a napkin with writing on it.

As she opened up her " You can do it! " napkin note from me, tears began

running down her face. When her eyes met mine, I saw she understood my

unspoken

message: My mother is ? and always has been ? a teacher.