I’D STILL SAY “YES”
One. Two. Three empty chairs. Where have they gone? Twenty. Thirty. Thirty-five empty chairs. Where have all my students gone? Five months ago, a day after the graduation ceremony, I was standing at the middle of what my students and I used to call home for ten months. My heart felt empty. It felt as if something precious was taken away from it, which left a void recognizable enough to create in me a sense of longing for these children. Oh, those children! They were to me an icing on top of a cake. I can still clearly remember those moments of triumph and failure, of victory and defeat. We made it through the rain, when tears would stream down their eyes because of poor grades. On the other hand, we remained strong until we reached our goals, when the class wins in a competition or when a classmate makes it to the honor roll. Speaking about students, two of them stand out in my mind and heart. It was just last February when my advisory class gave birth to a promising student, an MVP