looking for the Mrs. Nelsons

Tolliver knows about gap years, the time some students take between high school and college in an effort to figure out what's next. 

Last week we let him take a gap day between Tuesday and Thursday, 

knowing the tall stack of pancakes and the old brass bugle and the friendly swans, 

knowing the generosity of men who make time to talk to children and the patches they pass along to hang on bedroom walls and inspire dreams 

might add up to something.

What You Missed that Day You Were Absent from Fourth Grade 

by Brad Aaron Modlin 

Mrs. Nelson explained how to stand still and listen 

to the wind, how to find meaning in pumping gas, 

how peeling potatoes can be a form of prayer. She took 

questions on how not to feel lost in the dark. 

After lunch she distributed worksheets 

that covered ways to remember your grandfather’s 

voice. Then the class discussed falling asleep 

without feeling you had forgotten to do something else— 

something important—and how to believe 

the house you wake in is your home. This prompted 

Mrs. Nelson to draw a chalkboard diagram detailing 

how to chant the Psalms during cigarette breaks, 

and how not to squirm for sound when your own thoughts 

are all you hear; also, that you have enough. 

The English lesson was that I am 

is a complete sentence. 

And just before the afternoon bell, she made the math equation look easy. 

The one that proves that hundreds of questions, 

and feeling cold, and all those nights spent looking 

for whatever it was you lost, and one person 

add up to something.