Dear Sister Mary Something

From a class with Carol Burdick, the Art of the Personal Essay
November 9, 2002

Dear Sister Mary Something,

Elaine

I suspect that you are "gone" now because years have brought my once brown hair to the peppered in gray that yours was when you slapped my  hand with the wooden ruler, your constant companion.

I learned not to talk in your class, not to question and thereby imply that you had not taught your lessons clearly.

I learned to name red, the color of my welt and to fear rectangles, the shape of that response on the back of my hand. Most of all, I learned to hate because when you finished with me you took your ruler to my little brother whose enormous sin was to write with his left hand, Satan's hand, the hand of evil.

David

David was quiet and frightened and less associated with Lucifer than you were with God. I remember your ruler, Sister Mary Something, and hope that you have found better ways to measure people,

Still Angry,
Elaine Hardman