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These photos were taken on a student trip to the British Isles in the late eighties.
Mom was always teaching. Always. If she is to be known as a storyteller, she must also be remembered for being a teacher - the two were interchangeable with her. She was a master teacher and a consummate storyteller and she moved seamlessly between the two consistently through her life. If she had been robbed of her ability to weave stories, she could not have taught; and I suspect that if she had been unable to teach, she would not have told stories.
Mary George Dean Murphy did not 'take on' the role of teacher; she was 'in part' at all times. She was never not teaching; it's what she did. We joked with her about it all of the time. My sister and I would pretend to be mad, and exclaim again and again, "we are not your students - this is not school!" At the time, we didn't know how wrong we were . . . we were her students and we were in school. We had her lessons, free for the taking, whenever we wanted them. I guess everyone everywhere is guilty at one time or another of missing out on something that is there for the taking; and at this point in my life, I would give anything to be 'back at school.'
Early in my life, we lived in Milledgeville, Georgia where my Dad was doing an internship at the state hospital. I was born there; and though I once thought that was somewhat embarrassing (because of the oft-told jokes about the mental hospital) I have grown to appreciate it. I have come to appreciate that I was born in the hospital where Flannery O'Connor had died just days before. Mom had appreciated the writer's residence there, too, and she did her first graduate thesis about O'Connor. In preparing these posts, I found an old letter, revealing something I had never known - Mom was actually the first ever student to be admitted into the graduate studies program at Georgia College.
After you've read Mom's story below you'll realize why I'm sharing her relationship with Milledgeville - it's crazy how parts of one's life can all come together in startling ways.
Today I share with you another gift from Mom. This is a piece that she wrote years ago mid-way through her teaching career. It illustrates how very much she cared about her students and how she touched them in ways that stayed with them forever. It grew to mean so much to my mother and she gave it to her graduating seniors each spring.
I was at the football game that my Mom refers to in this story. I knew nothing of the pain of the boy in the story. To me, he was a hilarious 'streaker' at the time that 'streaking' was sweeping the nation and making us all laugh. I had no idea what my mother knew. I had no idea the work she was doing with one hurting life. When she shared the story with us years later, I was not at all surprised at her dedication, but I've spent a lot of time making sense of how hard it must have been to be present as a mother at the same time that she was being present with a suffering student. That was a struggle Mom knew a lot about.
I trust that you'll enjoy another story written by my mother and that it will give you a deeper sense of her dedication.
