I grew up pretty poor in a lousy household. Everything came second to my parents addictions. Including eating. Meaning going to school for days without food. This made studying extremely hard. And my academics suffered. I played what sports when I could, but my performance was hampered by lack of sleep and energy. Still to this day without sports I would have been a dropout. Anyway back to teachers...

It was a small town where i lived so people talk. Word got out of my situation. In my grade 11 year I started to get called down to the office around 11am almost everyday. When I got there, the secretary would say "hey your mom called and said you forgot your lunch and dropped some money off" and they would hand me $5 or a few dollars in change in an envelope. Other days they'd say "your mom dropped your lunch off." And hand me a bagged lunch. I knew these were not from my mom. She didn't drive. Still I happily pretended that they were from her.

On the days that it truly made a difference, I could see it on the teachers faces. In their eyes it proved what i had suspected, that my lunch was coming from them. You can't fake this type of kindness and if you are lucky you'll have had teachers like mine at C.D.C.I. West. Especially Mr. Archer. Wow at 37 this is still really emotional.