Remembering Mr. Rose
by Jane Paznik-Bondarin
He
was always just “Mr. Rose.” I never knew his first name, or
if I did, memory would not have served it up after forty years, so I am
not sure what drove my eyes downward to the details of the New York Times
obituary: Aaron Rose, 93. “Loving and devoted husband of... adored
and honored father of... cherished grandfather of…” The consoling
words of loss, but none defined the man for me. And then… ”Teacher,
counselor, advisor, and administrator at Jamaica High School from 1932
to 1971…” Oh, Mr. Rose.
*****
Flashback: 1962. I am a senior and assistant to Mr. Rose, faculty advisor to the student government. This job is a nerd’s dream, as it puts me in the society of the popular students without my having to be one. I control access to Mr. Rose, and he has become my friend, confessor, and mentor.
One Spring evening, the student government officers meet at my home. Whatever their agenda, mine is that I will introduce Mr. Rose to my family, he will tell them how competent and smart I am, and they will immediately recognize how they have undervalued me. A movie in the making!
Roll camera: I usher Mr. Rose into the kitchen. As others arrive, they pull up chairs around the table until the room is crowded with young and old, and the hum of conversation rises like bread baking in the oven. Mr. Rose and I stand on the periphery, two colleagues. “Jane,” he leans over and says into my ear, “Let’s talk before the meeting starts.” As we slip away to the living room, I enjoy this feeling, this sense of self-worth he has instilled in me.
"I know you will understand,” he begins. Dissolve.
Sweat forms in my armpits. This is the first time I am conscious of the physical sensations that will accompany, even presage, similar experience for the rest of my life: I am about to be hurt. Experience has taught me what I did not know then: Whoever says these words to me—“I know you will understand”—is about to hurt me. I do know I should walk away but am rooted to this spot. He continues. "We have eleven graduation awards for school service, and we have twelve possible candidates." He ticks off the list, like it is not I who ordered the plaques and await the names to send to the engraver.
Something’s different, though. To each name he adds the college each of us plans to attend. Darryl has been wait-listed at Princeton, Geoffrey at Williams. The awards will make them more attractive to these A-list colleges. At my name he adds: "It won't matter to you because you're just going to Queens." The local municipal college doesn’t care if I am an editor of the award-winning high school newspaper and have received the Student Service Award; my grade-point average and my address are the only keys to the admissions door.
I am not only immobile but dumbstruck. I want this award. I want it desperately. My high school career must end with some affirmation. I want to be called to the podium and accept my award to the applause of my schoolmates and family. I want my grandparents to be proud. And, damn it, I deserve it.
"You don’t have to say anything. We’re like one person. I knew you'd understand. I love working with you because you are mature beyond your years." And he walks out of the room. Mature? I want to stomp my feet and scream. I want to flee the house. I want more than anything never to face Mr. Rose, or Jamaica High School, or my family again.
*****
Of course, that isn’t what happened. I finished the year as Mr. Rose’s assistant, and I doubt he noticed a change in my behavior towards him. At commencement, in the first of what would be a lifetime of rented academic caps and gowns, I walked down an aisle in a public park, sat through a ceremony I no longer remember, and later accepted the hugs of grandparents and parents. I was not awarded the Student Service Medal.
Darryl went off to Princeton, Geoffrey to Williams, and I to Queens. I hope their schools were as exhilarating and formative for them as Queens was for me.
I was surprised then, some ten years into my own teaching career, to find myself writing about “Me and Mr. Rose” in a workshop on personal narrative. Where had THAT come from? Even more surprising was the “moral” at the end about having learned a valuable lesson about being disappointed by adults. For years after, I used some version of this story as a sample to my writing students. And then I stopped teaching that course.
Today, when accident—if that is what it was—drew my eye to Mr. Rose’s obituary, I am on the brink of my own retirement from the academic world. I am about the age Mr. Rose was that fateful year. Now that’s pretty strange: Mr. Rose was the oldest man on the planet back then, and—in my heart, at least—I am still much the same hopeful girl I once was. Could he have felt like that, too?
Now, however, replacing the freshness of hurt is my rueful understanding that in my thirty-two years of teaching I, too, must have disappointed students. How often did I forget to search students’ faces for the unasked questions that would have guided their understanding? How often was my head too crowded with its own thoughts that I rushed an answer to a voiced question and snuffed an intellectual fire that had lit a student’s eyes? How many students needed more sensitive comments on their essays or a few more minutes to develop an answer to a question about literature? When was I short, or flip, or simply inattentive? It’s a funny life, teaching; you’re only as good as the last time you get it right, and you most often remember your spectacular failures.
I didn’t mean these slights and insensitivities, God knows. Nor did Mr. Rose. Not a god, he was simply a harried teacher who did his best, and never knew how he lived in my memory. And had he known, what could he have done but—like the rest of us—try to get it right the next time, with the next student?
Rest in peace, Mr. Rose. I’m sure you tried.
Jane
Paznik-Bondarin's heart lives in New York City.
Her email is: 