Friends Lost and Found

As I was typing my last blog, “Persevere”, my mind drifted to a situation that I experienced several years ago, which still has an impact on me today…

During the summers of my college years, I was a camp counselor. I was assigned to the girls with the most emotional and mental needs. Although at times I felt that the other counselors had it a lot easier than I, I was appreciative of the experience and felt better equipped as I started my first year of teaching special needs children.

Traci, a ten year old, was able to attend camp for two of my summers. The first time with Traci was challenging. She didn’t trust anyone, was always hiding and constantly had nightmares. There were several nights that I calmed Traci and reassured the other girls that she was okay. On the morning that she had to leave camp, Traci initiated a hug, which was a first.

The second summer with Traci had its challenges as well. Traci was like my shadow and I literally tripped over her a few times! She didn’t want to participate in activities, but just wanted to talk. We would go for walks and I soon learned about how messed up Traci’s life was. I tried to offer her encouragement and tried to help build her self-esteem to be honest with someone at school about the home situation.

The school year started and I didn’t give camp any further thought. It was my first year of teaching and I needed to focus on that. However, in late October, our school mail deliverer, Paula, stopped by my classroom door. She asked if I ever was a camp counselor. I thought that was an odd question, but responded, “Yes.”

Paula then pulled out a postcard and said, “I guess this belongs to you. Could you read it and decide if it’s yours?” I looked at the postcard and it read,
Dear Miss Barb.
Thank you for being my counselor and my friend. I no longer live at home. I
have a new family because of you.
I never told you, but I love you.
I hope your first year of teaching is going well.
Traci

After I read the postcard, Paul had me flip it over. It was simply addressed to: Miss Barb and just the name of my town. Apparently the postcard was delivered to our town’s post office (even though there are three towns in the US with the same name), and when they read the line about teaching, they gave it to Paula to figure out which teacher it goes to.

I still don’t know if I was more shocked to hear from Traci or by the effort of the post office to find the owner of the postcard. Every couple of years I would receive a card or letter from Traci with updates about her life. She continued to use partial addresses, but at least had the state and zip code. Traci never put her returned address on her envelopes. I then received a beautiful letter from Traci letting me know that she was graduating from high school and would be attending college. She wanted to work with special needs children as well. In that letter, Traci gave me an address. She said that she never provided one before because she was afraid that her natural parents would somehow figure out where she was. Traci did extremely well in college. She’s now married and has two adorable girls. We keep in touch at Christmas time.

Traci will forever have a special place in my heart.

Tags: encouragement, persevere, relationships

This entry was posted on Monday, January 4th, 2010 at 3:52 pm and is filed under Find friends, Friend search, Readers stories, Reunion Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.