celebration

I had to give him a practice spelling test.  Ten words.  Wide-ruled paper.  #2 pencil.  Head bent low, he huffed and puffed and wrote down each word after I said it out loud.  When he finished spelling each one, he would look up and nod real quick, "ready, Miss Anna."

After the first test, he got more than a few words wrong.  So I sent him back to study for a few minutes and then we did a second test.  "I'm not grading this one, little boy," I told him.  "Do it as many times with me as you can so when your teacher gives you the actual test, you'll know it!"

Second time around, only one word was spelled incorrectly.

Celebration.  


For the life of us, we couldn't get that word spelled right.

So after a few minutes of tickling out all the frustration, shaking out all the defeat, we marched into the other room.

I wrote CELEBRATION as big as I could, as high as I could on the white board.

"Copy it five times," I instructed and handed him the marker.  Then I went to a volunteer and explained the situation.  "When he's done, erase it all.  And have him write it five more times on his own.  He will complain.  But tell him I said so."  Volunteer just smiled, understanding in a way only a father could.

Ten minutes later I walked back into the room.  Volunteer was wiping down the white board and my little boy was standing beside him, marker in hand.

"Miss Anna!" He exclaimed.  "He made me write it all by myself.  Did you tell him to make me do that? Shooo..."  All he wanted to do was go play basketball.  But I was determined.

"Spell celebration for me," I pointed at the board.  With only a little protesting then, he walked up to the board and in the messy way of a fourth-grader, he wrote celebration.

He handed me the marker and stepped back from the board.  I almost started crying.  "Little boy," I squatted down next to him and took his face in my hands.  "Do you know what you just did?"

His little brow furrowed and he looked at me and then back at the board.  Then back at me again.

"You spelled celebration right.  All on your own," I whispered in his ear and turned his face to take a look at the big word.  The big word he'd spelled correctly.  My heart was too big for my chest.

-

This afternoon I walked up into our tutoring area.  Everyone was settled with homework and snacks and tutoring partners.  He came running then out of his study room, wide-ruled paper in his hand.

"Miss Anna! LOOK!"

He handed me the piece of paper.  Numbered one through eleven.  At the top his teacher had written 110%.

Every single word spelled right.  Plus a bonus word.

"Miss Anna," he put his forehead against mine, "look.  I spelled celebration right."

I think I almost squeezed him in half.

We jumped up and down and gave high-fives and fist bumps and then I squeezed the breath out of him again.  I stopped and got down on his level and held his face in my hands and said, "I am so proud of you, little boy.  So proud."

How often is this the story of my life?

I must learn a lesson over and over and over again.  I must stand at the white board and rewrite the word until my hand hurts.  Then He erases what I've been copying and asks me to keep writing.  I remember thinking, why must I keep doing this?  

Then one day, I will be called on to write the word on my own.  For a grade.  For a purpose.  No longer just for practice.  And I will know how.

After all that time, then, we will truly celebrate.   What it means to overcome.  To learn.  To repeat the same lesson over and again.  Until we finally get it.  Finally.