Curious

One of the strange things about finding out about Eliezer was that the window by which I found out about him was very slim.

Let me explain.

They give the standardized tests (the New York State Regents exams – more about that another time) a number of times throughout the year. And grading them is a Herculean task especially during the school year when HUNDREDS of kids are taking it. Every English teacher is reading and grading… reading and grading… reading and grading for about 4 days after the initial test.

The test is given in the summer as well, but this time there were only about 150 kids that took it, as opposed to 700.

So I happened to call my Assistant Principal to see what things were looking like for next year. Of course he had nothing to tell me, but he did offer me two days of work grading the summer Regents exams.

Two days of “overtime” would amount to a tidy sum, so I decided to leave Maine for the two days and grade.

Grading can be tedious but it can be fun if you get the right group. It was me and three other English teachers doing the grading.

On the second day of grading, which I was determined to just finish grading and then be in the wind back to Maine, one of the other teachers asked me and the other teachers if we knew “Elijah Vazquez.”

“Elijah?” This teacher can be a bit of a dick.

“Oh, I don’t know how to say his name……” and he pulled the article out to show me.

I told him that indeed he was one of my students that last year.

“Yeah… I guess he died in a kayaking accident. You know sometimes they have good news in the paper… sometimes this.”

I felt very angry, it seemed he was carrying this article around - being kind of morose. As I said… a bit of a dick.

So that’s how I found out.

The thing that amazes me though is the article was in the paper on THAT day. (August 17.)

What were the chances that I would be back in NYC for such a small window of time, but in the same time that this article was printed. AND that some one would bring it in at the same time?

I guess I am alleging that some sort of cosmic force wanted me to see that article. Why, I have no idea. But the planets definitely aligned in order for me to know about Eliezer.