By Susan Ohanian

Receiving a holiday card isn’t exactly news — except this card is from Emily, who has followed me through five changes of address since she was my student. I know two things about Emily: 1) our shared words acquired a special meaning. 2) I’m still not at all sure what that meaning is. I wrote about our connections in Caught in the Middle: Nonstandard Kids and a Killing Curriculum (Heinemann 2001).

Emily is one of those quiet, pleasant, passive children who sit in classrooms year after year, never volunteering a word. Emily is such a good, polite little girl that by the time she reaches junior high, she has never been in remedial reading. Her eighth-grade science teacher is astounded that Emily is not receiving extra help and sends her to me. Emily sits with her vague little smile all day, not understanding assignments but never asking for help. If I ask her directly, “Do you understand this?” she just looks at me, reluctant to admit incomprehension. I’m not at all sure that Emily understands what she doesn’t understand. Asking questions about some elements of a text is a sophisticated process, one requiring comprehension of the surrounding text. Even though I know better, some days I plead, “Emily, please ask for help when you don’t understand something. That’s what I’m here for — to help you. Besides, I like helping you.” Emily blushes and hangs her head. And sits there quietly until the next time I check on her.

Emily never misses a day in our note exchange. This exchange seems unexceptional until the day I post to Emily this question: “What is your favorite flower? This question introduces a theme that lasts for months. Emily replies, “Red rose, yellow rose, blue rose, and pink rose or zinnia.”
I am delighted to have struck a chord and answer,

Dear Emily,
Here’s a poem for you by a woman named Elizabeth Coatsworth. I like it a lot and hope you do too.

Violets, daffodils
Roses and thorn. . .

From that point on, Emily’s note to me consists of lists of flowers. One day her note is

Carnations, sweet William, baby’s breath.
Emily

That’s it: the whole note. The next day, she writes
Daisies and marigolds.

Emily

I always sign my notes, “Your friend, Mrs. O,” and most of the kids copy this format. But Emily doesn’t give me any salutation, just her name.

I write Emily questions about some of the flowers in her lists, but she doesn’t answer me. She just keeps writing those lists:
Bloodroot, pansy, tansy, tulip, dandelion, milkweed, iris, baptisia.
Emily

Dogtooth vioilet, lady’s slipper, jack-in-the-pulpit.
Emily

Wild rose, gold rose, honeysuckle, cactus, black-eyed Susan, sweetpea, four-o’clock, Queen Anne’s lace, butterfly bush, morning glory, lily of the valley, harebell, thistle, bardock.
Emily

I can’t imagine where Emily is getting all these names. Then one day I see her taking a big, fat Encyclopedia of Gardening out of her book bag. Sometimes her lists are short; sometimes they are long, but no matter what I say in my notes, Emily just keeps giving me more flower names in hers. One day I don’t answer her note, figuring it doesn’t really matter; after all, she doesn’t seem to be paying any attention to what I say. She isn’t answering my questions or commenting on any of my funny stories. Emily, however, is quite indignant when she doesn’t have a message from me. She drops the little 3-by- 5 wire-bound notebook we use for the exchange on my desk and complains, “You forgot to answer my letter.” I apologize and write her a note.

Why don’t I just ask Emily what’s going on? I don’t know — except I have a feeling something cosmic is occurring. Students and I rarely talk about the content of our note exchange: the real beauty of the notes is that we do our “talking” in the notes. I don’t question Emily about her notes, never ask, “Emily, why do you write all these flower names/” because I don’t want to jinx anything. I just treat our exchange as a regular part of our day and continue writing her notes, letting Emily work out whatever she’s working out. I guess I operate on the principle that “the mystery will be revealed one day.” And in the meantime, don’t meddle.

Finally, one Thursday a couple of months after Emily wrote her first flower list, she sends me a hint that she is indeed paying careful attention my notes. I write,

Dear Emily,
Peony! I love peonies. I’d forgotten about peonies until you mentioned them in your note. Thank you for reminding me.
How about buttercups, sweetpeas, milkweed? Would you like to eat them for dinner?
Your friend, Mrs. O

Emily replies:

Dear Mrs. O,
Houseleek, stapelia, arrowhead, wild columbine, halachoe, tritoma, clover, mayapple, strawberry geranium. No, I do not eat plants.
Emily

After this one small breathrough, Emily’s lists continue as usual. The lists, in fact, get longer. Every day I write Emily funny stories about my cats, complaints about shoveling snow, what I did over the weekend. Every day she gives me lists of flowers. Then I begin to write about how much I am looking forward to spring, and Emily surprises me again.

Dear Mrs. O,
It is supposed to get to 65° today.
Your friend, Emily

Written in tiny letters, the “Your friend Emily” is almost too small to decipher. I want to whoop with joy. I write her a spring poem in reply, and then ask her a question. “If you had a choice of any place in the world, Emily, where would you like to visit/” Over the months, I have asked Emily 50 or more questions in my notes, all of which she calmly ignored. But here comes another answer.

Dear Mrs. O.

Portland Oregon.
Brown and furry caterpillar in a hurry,
Take your walk to this shady leaf or stalk,
May no toad spy you
May the little birds pass by you;
Spin and die,
To live again a butterfly.
Christina Georgina Rossetti and Emily

What a gift. Of course I am thrilled. I write back, telling Emily how the poem delights me. I include a short poem about butterflies in my note and ask Emily another question: “What do you like about butterflies?” And here comes another answer:

Dear Mrs. O,

They look pretty and all the different butterflies and special colors and it would be nice to fly.
In spring the chirping frogs
Sing like birds. . .in summer
They bark like old dogs.
Onitsura and Emily

This is the last question Emily answers for another two months. Every day she gives me a poem in her note, and I give her one back in mine. And I always ask her a question, not knowing what may spark another response. One day Emily reads my note and storms up to my desk. “You just took my poem,” she complains. “I was going to give that one to you today.” We agree that it’s pretty nice when two people like the same poems so much that they want to give them to each other. Emily shows me that she has started a scrapbook of short poems, a hoard of poems she likes and hopes I will too. I show her that I have a similar scrapbook: poems short enough to write on the board.

Sometime during the flower list notes, Emily begins bringing me a flower every day. Some days they are silk, other days they are real. Emily lives with her grandparents and works in their nursery. In class, she opens up a bit, revealing her extensive knowledge about flower cultivation. One of our class projects is for students to prepare a talk for their classmates about something they know how to do. To my surprise, Emily, who rarely communicates with other students, is enthusiastic about this project. She brings in a lot of material and demonstrates how gardeners graft plants to produce new species. Emily is knowledgeable and articulate, and her classmates are amazed—and interested. Emily’s demonstration goes so well, she agrees to present it to all my classes. She also gives the talk in her science class.

When Emily is in high school, she drops by occasionally “just to say hi.” I always ask her how she likes her courses. She always smiles her vague little smile and replies, “Fine.” When Emily is a senior she brings me a poinsettia for Christmas. “I hope you still like flowers,” she smiles. Then she asks the question that every student who comes back to visit asks: “Do you still write those notes to kids?” It is the part of the curriculum that students seem to care about. My answer continues to be yes.

After Emily graduates from high school, and yes, she does get a diploma, something that dismays the current corporate-politico power brokers, she starts sending me a card at Christmas and another one in April, a Happy Spring card. For a few short years she includes a short note, and these notes break my heart. Each year I can see diminished verbal facility. The spring cards drop off. Then one Christmas, there is no note. Emily sends a huge elaborate card with a poem copied out on a separate piece of paper stuck inside. This pattern continues for another few years: No personal message about how she’s doing, no comment on what I have written her, but always a poem. Twice a year I send her a card. I always tell her something about what I’m doing, tell her about my cats, and I always ask her a question. I know she reads the cards because she has paid attention to my changes of address. Her address hasn’t changed.

Most years Emily has signed the cards, “Your friend Emily.” One year the salutation was, “Your friend always, I love you, Emily.” Then come the cards that make me weep. No poem. No salutation. Just the one word: Emily, written in those tiny letters. Emily haunts me forever. I never did figure out what poetry meant to her. I can only hope she still has it. As another Emily wrote, “Hope is the thing with feathers.”