WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT

In my travels through the course of the week, Sometimes: meeting some wonderful people rewards me. The people I want to be close with are the ones I love and respect for various reasons.

TLW (The Little Woman) years ago asked me to photograph all the second grade students for her Religious Education program, and to create a poster to acknowledge the accomplishments of these little kids for receiving their first communion.

Every year, with very little time, and usually a crammed schedule, I go about the task of photographing about 20 to 26 classes of children and their teachers for the poster. I enjoy doing it; I just wish I had more time to do it. Then once in a while, there is a hitch, a child will be absent from the class and either I have to Photoshop them in, or leave them out. If I can get them in I will.

This year I went to a particular class to shoot, and the teacher a lovely woman, said she was missing one child, a little boy who would not be in the picture. Apparently he was a special needs child. I could read the disappointment, and said I would come back next week. Her eyes lit up and she thanked me.

Next week came and I felt like Douglas MacArthur, returning to the Philippines! I enter the teacher’s workroom and her eyes lit up once again. Rico was in class, and we immediately went to work.

Meeting Rico made a long day better with a sweet ending. Rico and I will be lifetime pals, and as they say in the movies, “What Rico wants, Rico gets!”

I have lost a week, but I have gained a friend and I’ll live! Let’s hope Rico lives a long time, with better days ahead. But actually, this is not about Rico, it is about his teacher. If you want to see love and compassion, look at this wonderful woman, and you will suddenly feel it. It makes me feel good that this woman is working with little children, and that she has the love in her heart to car that much.

The headline or theme of the poster is: “Let the children come unto me.”