for Luanne Ferenci

Some students in the Adaptive Physical Education class
can barely stand up so a volley ball on the floor
must seem to them a mountain to climb, one more
difference from the rest of the kids they see
in school. And I think of their fathers
who love them with all their hearts and each day
of each year must watch their sons and daughters
struggle through motions other kids find easy
as breathing. I consider my own son and the love
and gratitude I feel for his pediatrician, for
his pre-school teacher, for all the adults
who help him and let him know he is someone
to be cherished. I stand in this hall looking in
at the able P.E. teacher and I see her patience
and devotion washing over these kids
like May rain and I hear their happiness
in playing games they can play. I feel in my heart
that their fathers, my brothers in parenthood,
would embrace her with gratefulness born
from a life of limits they have had to see
their kids endure. We are all God’s children
so these students are my family, too and
I have such joy watching this woman work
her miracles in the noise of the gym as I stand
outside looking in, smiling through my tears.

From Dream Teaching (Grayson Books, 2005).
Used here with the author’s permission.