Offering Hope

I recently started taking classes in a teacher leaders’ program. One of my instructors in the program found out that in a few weeks, she must have surgery for cancer, and possibly follow up this surgery with chemotherapy. She announced this to the class last week to inform us that she may be out for one or more classes, and perhaps even for the rest of the semester. We’ve only had 3 class meetings, but I already can feel that she is a genuinely caring individual. She also spent many years as a respectable principal of a NYC bilingual/dual language school. It was apparent in her voice and her words that she was concerned and nervous with all the uncertainty and gravity surrounding her predicament. In the hopes of offering her hope, I immediately shared with her and the class that my mother had the same surgery with the same follow-up treatment and that my mom was doing well after all of it. That evening, I also emailed her about Gilda’s Club, an organization I had heard about recently that provides support to cancer patients and their family members. I also informed her that she would be in my thoughts and prayers. She emailed me back with the message “THANK YOU!” My classmates and I plan to send her flowers after the surgery.