Mrs. Walker

The story of the teacher who very well may have saved my life

I was in fifth grade when my mother one day just didn’t wake up. She and I (and sometimes my teenage brother) lived in a tiny apartment in La Mesa, California. Mom and I shared a bedroom and a bed. She hadn’t felt well the night before, so I made her some Campbell’s chicken noodle soup and slept in my brother’s room.

When I woke the next day, Mom wasn’t in bed, and the living room was full of people: my sister, who I hadn’t seen in over a year; my mom’s fiancé; family friends.

Mom had died in the night, and no one would tell me how or why, only that I “had to be strong now.” I was ten. As a mom now, as each of children turned ten, I was reminded of how small and vulnerable ten is, how ludicrous it was to tell me to be strong, to “be a trooper.”

I was out of school for a week while the adults decided what to do with me. My father didn’t want me full time, so we tried a stint where my sister and her husband moved into the apartment. For myriad reasons, this was a bad choice. My father finally had me go live with him.

Let me tell you a little about my father- my mom left him after 18 years of abuse. He was an angry, violent alcoholic who abused his family in unspeakable ways. But he was active in the community, gregarious, smart, funny, good looking. People loved him and thought he was a great guy.

This “great guy” would have appeared to be holding my hand during my mother’s funeral. If one looked closely, they would have seen him digging his fingernails into my palm, whispering to me not to cry and embarrass him. Whispering that my mom was a whore and that I was better off.

Living with my father meant changing schools with six weeks left in the school year. This is where Mrs. Walker comes in and saves the day, and probably my life.

Mrs. Walker lived in the East County, 20 minutes or so from La Mesa Dale Elementary, where she was my 5th grade teacher. Hearing about mom’s death, moving across town, and changing schools, she offered to pick me up every morning and drive me home after school.

I didn’t realize at the time what a sacrifice that was. She added close to an hour to her commute, twice a day every day until the end of the year. All so that I could maintain a tiny shred of normalcy in a life that had fallen apart.

In the car, Mrs. Walker would gently check in with me. I told her things I didn’t dare speak aloud to anyone else. In my dad’s home I wasn’t allowed to speak about Mom and was never told how she died. I wasn’t allowed photos of her. Nothing of her remained but my memories. So, Mrs. Walker would ask about Mom, gently, kindly, and allowed me to process my grief in her passenger seat.

I told her about the soup I made the night Mom died, how my brother told me it was the soup that killed her. I confessed being afraid to outgrow the clothes she’d made me because then I’d have nothing left of her. I told her I was terrified of sleep, certain that I, too, would be taken in the night.

Mrs. Walker’s car became my sanctuary. For six critical weeks I was able to talk, cry, rage, and begin the long, slow healing process. For her part, Mrs. Walker listened, hugged, encouraged, loved, and assured me that I would be okay one day. Maybe not *that* day, but one day. I am forever grateful.

Over the past five decades I have tried to find Mrs. Walker. I wanted so much to tell her how much her kindness changed my life, and that I realize what a sacrifice it was to add that extra time to the workdays of a young newlywed. That I understand, at least in part, the emotional energy it took to care for me during those rides.

On my first daughter’s tenth birthday I called the administration offices for the La Mesa/ Spring Valley School District. The lovely woman who answered the phone listened, took my name and phone number, and said she would ask around and get back to me. Days later she called to say she was sorry, but she couldn’t find anyone who knew how to get ahold of Mrs. Walker. The quest was made more difficult by the fact that I didn’t remember her first name. I set it aside for a few years.

On and off through the years I tried, contacting the school directly, the retired teachers’ association, the district superintendent…anyone I could think of who might be able to help. But I never had success.

Until.

We were newly into the global pandemic that shut down nearly every part of our lives, and like many others, I began to spend more time on social media. On Twitter I followed a couple of quite large accounts: an anonymous fake cow and a dog, strangely enough. I posted a thread about Mrs. Walker and asked for ideas for finding her. These two accounts picked up the story and shared it with their over half a million followers. It took about a week. After a few false alarms, I found Mrs. Walker. She was living in the southwest and was remarried. With shaking hands, I reached out through Facebook.

I can’t adequately express what the feelings were when I saw she had responded. She remembered. She said it didn’t seem as if there were an option at the time- a child needed help and she was in a position to provide that help. Since that day we have chatted quite a bit. She has two beautiful, brilliant daughters and a whole passel of grandchildren whose pictures she was proud and delighted to share. I shared photos of my own five children. We “like” and comment on each other’s posts now and message occasionally. She is as bright and beautiful and kind-hearted as I remembered.

Mrs. Walker was able to answer for me a question that has plagued me all this time. I’ve always wondered why no one ever spoke to the authorities or reported my father’s abuse. She told she did call and make a report. But nothing ever came of it. My dad was a police officer, and in 1973 the Boys’ Club was stronger and darker and more insidious than it is even today.

But knowing that someone saw, that someone made the call, that the bruises and stitches didn’t go unnoticed, that meant something to me. Although it all eventually was swept under a huge misogynistic rug, someone saw me and cared.

Mrs. Walker continued teaching and changing young lives in California for nearly four decades. Just think of the hundreds of children who daily sat in her classrooms, being seen, being loved, knowing they had value, because their teacher was more than a teacher.

Thank you, Mrs. Walker, for seeing and loving this broken, lost kid all those years ago. I will be forever grateful.