It has been my great good fortune to have been working in the independent school world long enough to have been able to participate in a David Mallory experienced faculty workshop. The late Mr. Mallory was the long standing director of professional development for the national association of independent schools and held marvelous retreat style workshops complete with great seminars and old movies punctuated by sumptuous food and libation. My seminar was about connecting with people who further us on our path in life providing us with tools or direction at different junctures. It was inspiring and uplifting at the time but its value has returned to me repeatedly over my career as an educator as I have deepened my sense of what furthering means.
Eli was a student I worked with when I served as academic dean. He was bright and capable yet hurting and struggling to meet his commitments. Our relationship was rather typical; he did not meet his obligations as a student and I patiently followed up with him putting before him next steps and strategies for living into his life as a student trying hard not to let frustration take over. I met with his parents – his heart surgeon father and emotionally fragile mother -as we endeavored to work with him. It was clear that there were larger issues than school at play. Eventually, he withdrew from school as his behavior had led him to a point of no return. It was a sad occasion.
Over a year later, I was living in another state and in the final stages of pregnancy with my daughter. I recall vividly that I was decorating her room and looking at her things wondering and reflecting on what kind of mother I would be for my daughter, when the phone rang. When I picked up a voice asked ‘Ms. Londergan’? I said yes. It was Eli. I was delighted to hear from him and to learn what he was now doing. He was starting college in September and was calling to share with me that since he left school he had eventually found his way into rehab. He let me know that his parents were getting divorced. He wanted me to know that he was calling me to let me know what I meant to him, what my vigilance and constant efforts to hold him accountable meant to him and how much he knew I cared for him. He felt he had never let me know what an important person I was to him and wanted me to know now.
As I hung up the phone, I did the only sensible thing a late stage pregnancy mom would do and wept. I cannot find the words to express what that call meant to me. Anyone looking in from the outside would say that I had tried hard to further Eli but all I know is that at the end of the story he had furthered me. I emerged from the natural hesitancy and anxiety of an expectant mother into a clearer sense of trust in my own ability to be present to others in my own imperfect ways and that just as I accepted and embraced other’s truths in these life events, they would perceive and appreciate mine.
