Dear Mrs. Marzarella

I'm not sure if you remember me. I'm an older version of a seven-year-old that entered your second grade classroom with fresh cut brunette bangs angling around a face of uncertainty. I would love you to know that I have been talking about you for many, many years and I have been wanting to write to you for quite awhile about the impact you have had on my life.  Even now after my graduation from college I can still remember drawing the crab apple tree that grew right outside our window every season and bringing in a cardboard box to symbolize my house in the large classroom map we created of our town.  I can still identify the black capped chickadee, tufted titmouse, junco, morning dove and downey woodpecker when I see them at my feeder.  But most of all I know you loved me and I felt a special connection with you. As I entered the second move of my lifetime in the middle of my third grade year, I was called into your room. I had already left your flock but you handed me a box of notecards with paintings by my favorite artist from the "Artist of the Month" that I learned about in your room. Since that time I moved once more, each time carrying with me this box of Monet stationary enscribed with a personal message from my favorite teacher.  Since then I have wanted to be an artist, an astronaut, a historian and a scientist (and looking through an old box the other day I noticed an entry from fourth grade me describing how I felt like an oddball because all I did was think about science, hysterical). As a young girl and over my lifetime I have struggled with worry like the water stains that have speckled your message on my box but I have always carried a piece of you with me in my heart. Today I took the first steps into my own second grade classroom ready to become Miss Goetz. I am beyond confident and excited to be able to touch the hearts of my students the way you touched mine. Thank you so much Mrs. Marzarella, for when you taught you loved. 

I love you!

Sincerely, 

Miss Sarah Goetz

Former Student and Second Grade Teacher