Dear Judith,
As I was reading old posts from last year, I realized that I never told you the final story of Bunny, my favorite little student from Saipan. She was my heart and soul in Saipan, and she taught me so much.
In the beginning of the year, I posted a picture of her on myspace. A friend from home commented on the picture, saying how cute she was. I remember disagreeing in my mind. Bunny is not cute. She is beautiful and fierce and independent and needy, a gaggle of contradictions, wrapped up in a tiny 3 year old's body.
Bunny left for four months during the school year. I didn't know if she would ever come back to school, though I did occasionally see her and her family at Street. I remember so clearly the day that she returned. It was around ten in the morning, and I was peeling an orange for breakfast, though we had already started craft activities. Out the front window of my classroom, I saw Bunny and her mother strolling toward the door. My heart dropped and I couldn't believe that she was actually coming back into my life. For weeks, I watched the door every morning, hoping that she would come back to school and she never failed. My baby had come back to me.
A few months later, the preschool graduation was scheduled, planned, and decorated meticulously. The children behaved for the most part, and things went off without a hitch. I was roaming around the church after the program, greeting parents and saying some goodbyes to my class. I was feeling sad, but I had promised myself that I wouldn't break down in front of everyone, until I saw Bunny. One look at her and I completely lost all my composure. I sat down outside the church and held her, sobbing, while her mother looked on sympathetically. It was then that her mother gave me the greatest gift ever: comforting words in my time of greatest anguish.
"Bunny used to not like school. Then you came, and she doesn't cry anymore when I take her. She really likes you. If we never see you again here, then in heaven." I could do little more than nod and whisper my thanks.
Bunny went to the office on my last day of work, and she cried. I nearly cried also. The last thing that I wanted to do was be separated from my baby, but I always tried to do right by her. She wouldn't fall asleep during nap time, so I laid down with her. She talked to me. She was sweet and she was hilarious. After the kids woke up, she let me take a picture with her, and she smiled. I cried.
My last day
I haven't heard from her mother since I left, but I believe that Bunny is in Jesus' hands, which is the only place where she could be more loved than with me. But I still miss my darling more than anything.
Our last field trip to American Memorial Park
On the Playground
