As the Independent’s schoolteacher/ diarist breaks the news about her next life move, a student and a boyfriend’s mom lose talking-to-Gina’s‑mom privileges.
March 16, 2006
Neither Brinn nor Dennis’s mother is allowed to talk to my mother. I am afraid both will put all of their fears about my leaving into my mother. Weeks ago, when I was rolling the thought of leaving for a variety of places around in my mind and aloud, I told Dennis’s mom. She went on a rampage.
“You’re crazy!” she screamed. “Why do you want to leave your families?! You’ll be so far away! It’s so hard to be alone! You don’t understand! You’re crazy! What if you get sick? You can’t just come home! You can’t drive home! What if you don’t like it — ¬¶then you’re stuck over there for a year! You’re crazy!”
Dennis’s mom has a beautiful lyrical voice, heavy with the rolled Rs of a Russian accent. She smiled the whole time, though. (I helped her speech along by throwing in all the Russian words I know: “stupid,” “yes,” “elephant,” “dog,” and my new favorites, “snake” and “bird.”) His mom and dad came to the U.S. from Russia 26 years ago with two suitcases and $210 to their name. They are amazing people who understand what it means to be alone in a new country.
Brinn, on the other hand, doesn’t. I called her two nights ago to give her the news. I’d rather she find out from me directly than from someone else down the line. As soon as I let the news out of my mouth, she fell silent.
“Miss.” (When Brinn starts off a sentence with just “Miss,” I know I’m in for something.) “So you’re saying you’re just gonna go off and live somewhere else for an entire year? You’re whack.”
I tried explaining what it feels like inside to want to do something so badly. But she wasn’t having it.
“Miss. You can’t take the city bus to Japan.”
“I know, honey. And I haven’t settled on Japan. But it will be somewhere far away.”
“Miss. You don’t even speak Japan.”
“No one speaks Japan,” I said. “They speak Japanese. And I know that. It’s okay. And that’s kind of the point.”
We went back and forth about how I’m not qualified to go to Japan and in every sentence I told her that I wasn’t set on Japan and that living abroad is something I’ve always wanted to do.
“You’re going to leave your mother,” she told me after a while.
“I know.”
“You’re going to leave her all alone.”
“No, she’s not alone. She’s with her family and her husband.”
“What does she think of all this?”
“She’s excited for me,” I said.
“You’re the only thing she has in the world,” Brinn said. “If I were a mother, I would tell my kid not to be disrespectful by leaving me. That kid wouldn’t go nowhere.”
I laughed, knowing she was serious. And I felt an inch of sadness because I knew Brinn probably won’t have the desire to explore the world — ¬¶and doing so would give her so much perspective and so much experience.
We left the conversation with Brinn telling me she hoped I would get pulled over and arrested for talking on my phone in the car so that I will end up in detention for a year and wouldn’t have to go away. She threatened that when it came time for the end of the school year, she wouldn’t come to school to say goodbye. I told her I’d have all summer to say goodbye to her and that I knew she was lying.
The next morning, her boyfriend who was at her house when we talked, knocked on my door.
“You almost made her cry, Miss,” he told me.
- * * *
I just checked my e‑mail and found this from one of my students, a 9th grader who I think doesn’t know I’m leaving:
Hello Ms. Coggio. This is the most proper I write in emails.I just wanted to thank you for being there for me when I most needed it. Your class is the only class I look forward to going to in this school. Especially in this school. I think that you should be thanked more often becuase you help your students in any possible way. I know for afact that you should be awarded best teacher in [our school] . Don’t think i’m just saying this becuase I’m buttering you up..I mean every word, and i thank you again for listening to my opinions and giving me advise on my problems.
your number 1 fan.Needless to say, this was an unexpected thank you. I wrote her back and told her she’d just made my day.
Miss, you seem to be set on going somewhere far away from New Haven. So go. But come back. If not to New Haven, to some American city. Excellent teachers are very rare and very necessary, and your talents can help underprivileged American teenagers better than anyone else. Listen to your students. Imagine how much happier Brinn would be if you promised to come back.