In seventh grade I lived with an unstable, mentally ill mother, it was like walking on eggshells around her, I never know what would set her off, while I didn’t see my father much because he was working to keep our family of six afloat and pay all the medical bills for treatments that weren’t working.

I had a geography teacher that year who would hand out a packet for a unit, and we would keep that packet in a folder and hand it all in to be graded after the unit test. I somehow lost my packet and was completely freaking out, because growing up in an unstable home, I was never sure how adults where going to react. But he was calm about the whole thing, told me not to worry about it, and just asked me what page I was on, then printed off the remaining pages of the packet.

Another time I was running behind in his class, and barely got a final project in on time. He knew I usually added in movie references on all my projects, so he handed it back and told me that he wouldn’t grade it until I added in some Marvel references. I made an A on that project. Mad respect for that teacher.