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THE COUNSELOR’S TALE
In honor of Muriel Riseman's
40 years of service to L-S
How many hands does one counselor hold
in 40 years?
How many hugs does she give out?
How many tissues?
No one can say for sure, but we know
there were enough tears to close Water Row.
There were the parents who couldn’t or wouldn’t listen.
The cruel rejection by peers. The sharp-toothed words. The incessant pressures.
There were the lies that depression told. All the broken bones of growing up.
The kids who shattered like glass.
He was a terrific student. She was an absolute whiz.
But, oh, that invisible integer in Math. That sub-atomic particle in Science.
No Columbus discovered it in History. Even World Language couldn’t translate it.
In English, Shakespeare’s tragedies were but a pale imitation.
For 7200 consecutive school days the human drama
constituted the only curriculum in Muriel’s office.
No lesson plans. No assigned readings. No worksheets.
Just life served up wounded and writhing.
Still, amidst all the hugs, the 40 years of giving and caring,
the wisdom and strength, the insights and reassurance
imparted on an hourly basis, she still found time
to do a little kvetching on our behalf.
Calling in OSHA to check the air quality in the old North Hall. Action!
Demanding reasonable counselor/student ratios in the contract. Justice!
Playing Mathew Shepard’s mother in The Laramie Project. Courage!
But really all this has been said before, and so much better when Whitman
wrote the words describing her a full century before she retired:
“Dazzling and tremendous how quick the sun-rise would kill me, If I could not now and always send sun-rise out of me.”
Muriel, thank you for sending so much sun-rise out of you to countless students
and colleagues.
That was a whole lot of light.
June 2013