She Was Twenty-Five

She sat on top of her desk.

Not behind it.

On it.

She wasn't very tall.

She had fabulous hair.

And a laugh you could find from out in the hallway.

It was 1992.

Niguel Hills Middle School.

She was twenty-five years old.

I was twelve.

She taught English and Drama, and she taught them like they were the same subject.

Everyone loved her.

Not because she was easy on us.

Because she was awake.

Her face did all the talking before her words ever got there.

She could catch a boy staring out the window and call the whole room's attention to his terrible crush…

when he was probably just daydreaming.

She was silly.

Supremely, unnecessarily silly.

And every one of us wanted to be in that room.

Sometimes she got mad.

I would look down at my desk and snicker to myself.

Not because it was funny.

Because I already knew her heart underneath it.

Our faith lined up without either of us making a thing of it.

She loved God. She loved people. She loved her whole life out loud.

At twelve, I did not know a grown woman was allowed to do that.

I never really left her classroom.

Even the years I wasn't on her roster, I would show up at her door.

Just to say hi.

Just to catch up.

All the way through middle school.

Niguel Hills, and then Aliso Viejo.

I was in eighth grade when she met Chris.

She hosted cast parties at her house, and he would be there.

He would stop by while they were dating.

He would stop by after they married.

She was so in love.

And so dramatic about it.

But that was Dawn.

That is how D'Amore became Lewis.

I watched a name change happen in real time and did not understand yet that I was watching a woman become someone.

I was fifteen and sixteen the summers I worked beside her.

Her TA, twice.

Fifth graders on their way into middle school.

Scared kids. Every one of them pretending not to be.

She let me stand next to her while they came through the door.

I have thought about that a lot lately.

She handed a teenager a roomful of children and told her she could do it.

Maybe she saw a leader in me.

Maybe she saw the compassion before I had a word for it.

Then she turned up at my high school.

She became the cheer advisor.

I was one of the mascots my senior year.

So I did not get her twice.

I just kept getting her…

Then I grew up, and we lost touch.

That is what happens.

You get married. You get older. The years get loud.

She came to my ten year reunion.

That is where it started coming back.

Facebook found us again when my kids were heading into the teenage years.

We got together a few times after that, kids in tow.

They never really got close.

The age gap was too wide for that.

But we were in each other's lives again.

By then she had already walked through some hard years.

Her story is hers to tell, and I am not going to tell it here.

I will only say this.

I watched her hold on when holding on was the harder thing.

And her strength gave me strength for my own life.

She and Chris came out the other side of it.

Then they turned around and started walking other couples through it.

That is who she has always been.

Whatever she survives, she goes back for somebody else.

And then, of all things, Maui.

Same island. Same week. Neither of us planned it.

We sat down to a meal like no time had passed at all.

I have been writing a book about the people who shaped me.

That is how I ended up here, at this table, writing about her.

When I finished my first song, my mom asked me one question.

Have you sent it to Dawn?

She didn't ask if I had sent it to anyone else.

She said Dawn.

Because Dawn is the one who encouraged the singing.

And the music. And the acting.

She is one of the people who helped me carry my light…

before I knew I was carrying one.

I have not sent her the song.

I am saving it.

I want her to hear it finished. In full production. The way it deserves to sound.

March 2027.

She'll know.

I got my silliness from her.

My love for the arts.

My love for people.

And the reason I would still rather sit on the desk than behind it.

She was twenty-five, and she was carrying her own light…

and she stopped long enough to show a twelve year old how to carry hers.

Thank you, Dawn Lewis.

I am still in your class.

With light and love,

Kristi J

Welcome Home