How do I love thee?
Let me count the ways.
Robert Browning

In 1958, I was hired to teach first grade at the Pierce Primary School in the slums of Brookline, Massachusetts. The children in my class had little to eat and less to wear. I think my dedication to those hungry, ragged urchins was magnified by shame that my own childhood had been so comfortable. I always had enough to eat and could choose anything I wanted from a filled closet to wear to school. My little Brookline children wore the same clothes each week until, by Friday, they were too soiled to distinguish their colors. The only hot meal they had was the breakfast the school fed them. When I was a child, I had teddy bears and Shirley Temple dolls. I rode a red three-wheeler with lots of chrome and had a yo-yo that glowed in the dark. My pupils’ toys were skipping ropes made from clotheslines and lopsided balls they found in the gutter.

The child most deeply embedded in my memory from that year was Kevin O’Riley.

 “That’s a tough one,” warned Nancy Ward, the woman who taught him the year before. “The whole family is no good. I had the older brothers, too and they were so stupid, it was a miracle they weren’t smashed by a truck crossing the street. This is Kevin’s third year in first grade and frankly I doubt that he will ever see second grade.”

Kevin was always a half hour late for school. When I asked him why he couldn’t get there on time, he said, ”I have to run to the doughnut shop to buy my mother her breakfast before I come to school. Lots of times, I oversleep because the television is so loud and then I don’t get in line for the bathroom soon enough.”

Why was Mrs. O’Riley spending a dollar on coffee and a doughnut when she could eat a far more nourishing breakfast at home for less than a dime? Obviously, the reason Kevin was failing first grade was that she burdened him with so many unnecessary chores.

” Would you like me to come home with you today after school, Kevin?” I asked. “I can explain to your mom that she needs to let you get washed and dressed first so you get to class on time.”

He smiled. “Mama would love to meet you,” he said. “She gets really lonesome because she has to stay home all day.”

“Doesn’t she go to work?” I asked.

Kevin shook his head. “She can’t work because Daddy broke her arm the last time he was home,” he said. “He hit her really bad and she still has a bump on her head.”

At three-fifteen, I dismissed my class and Kevin and I hurried down the junk littered street to his tenement building. He took my hand.

 “Be careful when you walk on the steps,” he said. “We don’t have any light in the hall anymore.”

Together we climbed nine flights of stairs and Kevin led me past a community bathroom with the door ajar. One look convinced me that no one with a shred of personal hygiene would enter that disgusting cubicle. I swallowed my nausea and followed him to the end of the hall. He pushed open the door and called,

 “Wait ‘til you see who came to visit you, Mama!”

He pulled me into a large room filled with children and empty bottles of liquor. A woman sat at a littered table with her head in her arms. At the sound of Kevin’s voice she lifted her head.

 “Kevin! Take this dollar and give it to Mr. Flaherty,” she said. “Tell him mother needs her medicine. . . and hurry.”

Kevin looked up at me and whispered,

 “She thinks I don’t know what her medicine is but I do because Billy Winter’s daddy drinks the same stuff. Mrs. Winter says all that alcohol will eat up Mr. Winter’s liver.”

Kevin gripped my hand and I could read the fear in his eyes.

 “I don’t want my mother’s liver to die,” he said. “Because she might die with it.”

Kevin went over to his mother and put his arms around her.

 “Mama,” he said. “I’ve brought home that nice teacher I told you about!”

Mrs. O’Riley lifted her head and looked at me and then went back to sleep. Kevin’s eyes filled.

 “I guess she needs to sleep it off,” he said.” When my mother isn’t hurting so much, she’s very nice, but now, her arm is all bent funny and she cries all the time.”

I took his hand.

 “Come with me,” I said. “I’ll treat you to some groceries and then I have to hurry home.”

This was a soap opera that I never believed could really happen and I was determined to help better this child’s life. The next day, I went down to the principal and told him Kevin’s story. The principal looked at me as if I were an innocent child.

 “Kevin’s home life is no better or worse than any other child’s in your class, Lynn Ruth,” he said. “I’ll tell the social worker to go over there but it won’t do any good. We’ll get her cleaned up and maybe sober, but as soon as that no-good husband of hers comes back, she’ll get smashed up and probably pregnant. Did you know that Kevin has twelve brothers and sisters, already?”

The next day, I packed a little lunch for Kevin to eat in the classroom and I did so for him every day after that. He and I became good friends and although I knew that his home was no refuge for him, I consoled myself that he and I had found a bit of sweetness together. That Valentine’s s day, Kevin came to school with a terrible bruise on his cheek. His eye was black and the tears had not dried on his face.” My mom did it,” he said to my unspoken question.

 “I couldn’t find any money for her doughnut.”

He reached in his pocket and forced himself to smile.

 “Happy Valentine’s Day, teacher!” he said and he handed me a flat package wrapped in red tissue with a white ribbon around it. I opened up the package realized why Kevin’s mother had to sacrifice her coffee that morning. Her son spent the dollar on a white handkerchief with one tiny rose embroidered on the corner. The card with it said, “Be my valentine. Kevin.”

I still have that hankie and each time I pull it out of my bureau drawer, I am nourished by the memory of Kevin’s earnest face and that laboriously printed note. It reminds me that love comes in many packages and often involves cruel sacrifice. I don’t know what happened to Kevin after I left, but I do know that any human being with his capacity to love at any cost cannot help but be a treasure to us all.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach
. . . I love thee with the breath, smiles, and tears of all my life!
Robert Browning