When I was eight I had an old lady as my teacher. At least I thought she was old. She always had long dresses with flowers on.
Once the whole class was invited to her home. It was a small apartment. She had baked cookies. I liked them and asked for the recipe. I found it some years ago among the few belongings I still have. It said “Teacher Märta´s cookies” in bad handwriting.
An accident had just changed my life and I was feeling quite emotional. I always liked her and felt it was a shame I had never told her so.
I thought she must be dead by now, but recalled where she lived back then. I looked her name up in the digital phone book here in Sweden. She still lived at the same address!
I remembered her with love in my heart and gave her a call. I told her my name, and would you believe it but she remembered me, some 30 years later. She even asked me how my two best friends from then were doing.
She was eighty years old by now. We talked for a long while.
Her remembering me just filled my heart with joy and brought tears to my eyes. She told me I had been one of her favorite pupils. Something I would have never guessed, since I could never keep my mouth shut and never remember to raise my hand in class.
Even my mother was surprised when I said I had called her. She told me that she thought that Märta did not like me.
I think subconsciously that she was the one that planted the seed of becoming a teacher in me.
Just thinking about this still brings tears to my eyes.
Märta Carlsson, I still love you
