Two women have left this earth and I find myself grappling with the loss. They were both people who brightened my days with their smiles, their optimism, their intellect, and their courage. Oddly enough I had no personal contact with them in the past five years, but they kept me smiling and feeling good about the world with their uplifting posts on Facebook.

Mary Ann Gorham attended that same high school that I did. She was a year ahead of me and I had little interaction with her until rather recently. I had been good friends with her sister, Frances, who was in my class. Frances and I had both been twirlers during our junior high days and we enjoyed many wonderful times and memories back then. 

We lost track after high school but seemed to pick up right where we had left off at our fiftieth class reunion. Mary Ann had accompanied Frances to the event and we felt an instant kinship with each other. The two of us immediately began to communicate regularly on Facebook and soon realized how much we had in common. We enjoyed many years of trading stories and making plans to get together in person but one thing after another stalled our plans including the Covid epidemic. Nonetheless I felt close to Mary Ann and I really fell apart when I learned of her death. Somehow it felt unfair that someone was taken at such a young age. I had hoped that we had many more years of developing our friendship.

On the day of Mary Ann’s funeral I came down with a rather daunting stomach virus that insured that I would not be able to drive across town to honor her. I wanted to tell her sister, Frances, how much I enjoyed the banter with Mary Ann and how she had often supported me with her comments on my posts. It all made me think of how we all too often talk about getting together but become too busy to make it happen. It is a regret that will haunt me. 

I was barely coping with the death of Mary Ann when I learned that Dr. Kylene Beers had also died. Once again I was stunned. It felt as though someone had punched the air out of me and I tried to explain to my husband through tears why Kylene was so special to me because he had never met her or heard me mention her. 

I first met Kylene Beers at a teachers’ convention. She was presenting a session on working with students who struggle to read. While it might have seemed strange for a mathematics teacher to attend a short seminar on the difficulties that some people have with reading, I knew that many of my students’ trouble with math came from the inability to read and comprehend well. I wanted to know what I might do to assist them in overcoming this kind of roadblock to their progress. 

Kylene was stunning and her suggestions prompted me to view my job as a math teacher differently. She helped me to understand that for some students it is not their knowledge of mathematical algorithms that is the stumbling block but rather their ability to know when and how to apply the rules. Reading often holds learners back so they end up hating math and telling themselves that they can’t do well when numbers are involved. Kylene showed me that there are many ways to teach reluctant learners how to take the building blocks of words apart to reach the understanding that they need to apply the methodologies of math. 

After that initial encounter I followed Kylene as her fame grew. She ultimately earned a PhD at the University of Houston and wrote books that I purchased and read with zeal. She opened her heart to educators everywhere by creating a Facebook page dedicated to enriching our knowledge of how to make reading accessible to everyone. I and hundreds of others followed her almost religiously. She was a gifted teacher and writer who always had a way of approaching even difficult topics with clarity and honesty.

I remember a time when she was quite disturbed that a book about Ruby Bridges, the young girl who integrated an elementary school in Arkansas in the early civil rights era, had been banned. A mother had complained that the story made her daughter feel sad. Kylene ferociously but ever so politely responded to the the mother in a letter that she hoped might reach the person who seemed to misunderstand the purpose of such books. In it she spoke of the courage of Ruby Bridges not just when she was a child but later as she became an adult. Kyene revealed that she and Ruby Bridges had become friends over the years and she proceeded to explain how remarkable Ms. Bridges became in spite of the prejudices that threatened to stymie her. Then Kylene praised the mother who had complained about the book by pointing out that Ruby’s story had made the child sad because she had obviously been taught to be beautifully compassionate. Kylene finished by declaring that reading has the power of helping to develop our best instincts.

Dr. Kylene Beers inspired me with her willingness to always stand up for those who were struggling. Mary Ann Gorham extended her friendship to me with a generous heart. They were both women who made my world better each day. I can’t imagine not hearing from them anymore. So many times they helped me to understand how truly good humans can be. With their deaths I have lost two people who uplifted my heart. Their memories will certainly be a blessing to me.