It’s been almost twenty years since I finished high school, and yet, no matter what, on the night before school starts I get filled with anxiety. I can’t sleep, I wander around the house like a restless spirit, full of worries that only grow stronger—especially now, because it’s not about me anymore, but about my children.

So tonight, in an attempt to calm myself, I decided to invite a few important women to a special party.

The first to arrive, singing a funny gibberish song from Gevatron, was Liora, my homeroom teacher in second and third grade. Liora is smiling, loves to sing and also to draw. She paints on the classroom boards a special kind of creature, a bit like the mysterious “Alfi” but not quite—something original. And she has such a sharp handwriting; I have no idea how she manages to write each letter exactly the same every time.

At the end of the year, she made us pocket albums with pictures from various events. I especially loved one photo where I look sad, because just before it was taken one of the kids accidentally stabbed me in the leg with a pencil. The tip might still be in my leg. And yet I love that picture—the expression on my face is very familiar to me.

At Purim, which we celebrated in third grade during the Gulf War, Liora brought face paints to the classroom, ones I had never seen before. I painted the map of Israel on my entire face, divided into alert zones, which were then marked with letters. Minutes after I finished, the alarm sounded. We ran for our gas masks. I remember how calm Liora was while helping me put the mask on so it wouldn’t ruin the face painting. Even I didn’t care anymore—I was terribly scared. How much I regretted Israel, suffocating and sweating inside the mask, and how much I admired Liora’s desire to protect it.

Later, when we no longer studied at school, she continued teaching us at her home or in a neighborhood shelter, in small groups, always with a smile. More than happy that the war was over, I was happy to return to the classroom routine with her.

Next, with measured, steady steps, Nogah arrives at the party. She was my homeroom teacher in the last two years of elementary school. Nogah was serious, a science teacher and many other subjects. To me, she was nothing less than a genius. With her, there was less room for jokes, but many moments of silliness, creativity, performances as a way to learn, and sometimes even as a substitute for written assignments. She had a deep understanding of the meaning of this middle age, between childhood and adolescence, investing a lot of time and energy in relationships between boys and girls and improving the atmosphere among cliques. I didn’t understand how she could see me among everyone, and I felt that she actually saw everyone among everyone else. To me, this was then (and still is today) a marvelous and superhuman ability.

Nogah comes to the party with lots of delicious, elaborate food. Her husband had a catering business, and as a kid, it amazed me that there were dads who worked at something not related to the army, especially a dad who worked with food! Truly science fiction.

I keep a special place next to me at the table for Zohar, who was my homeroom teacher for three years of high school. Zohar was truly a child herself, even back then we understood that, and as years pass, I realize more and more how rare she is; a 27-year-old teacher entering a class of 16-year-olds, a brand new teacher fresh out of the box, with such love and passion for education, teaching, and literature. It was impossible not to fall in love—with her and with the subject. It simply wasn’t an option.

But that’s not why I invited her.

I invited her because of the time she called me after class to accompany her to the teachers’ room, where there was a small, inner room. She invited me in, locked the door behind her, and said I wouldn’t leave until I explained what was going on and how she could help. Writing this, it sounds a bit intimidating, maybe even intrusive, but it wasn’t. It was very important—to cry it out, to throw it up—and then I knew I wouldn’t have to do much for her to call me again. She would know when I needed her and act accordingly.

She always insisted on creating visibility for me, special places, truly special! Where I could contribute something, where my name would be written somewhere, so I could sign it.

There is so much chaos in this experience, those years of adolescence. Even if you are lucky enough to have the coolest parents in the world—they are still, in many cases, “dinosaurs,” who don’t understand anything, certainly not you. It’s so rare to meet, at that time, an adult who not only runs with the crazy pace of life and doesn’t just complain about “the moody, self-absorbed, always grumpy teenager,” but also sometimes stops for a moment beside this becoming person caught in an unspeakable hurricane and says “Hey, let’s sit together for a moment.”

There is so much chaos in this experience, those years of adolescence. Even if you are lucky enough to have the coolest parents in the world—they are still, in many cases, “dinosaurs,” who don’t understand anything, certainly not you. It’s so rare to meet, at that time, an adult who not only runs with the crazy pace of life and doesn’t just complain about “the moody, self-absorbed, always grumpy teenager,” but also sometimes stops for a moment beside this becoming person caught in an unspeakable hurricane and says “Hey, let’s sit together for a moment.”

So to Zohar, whom I’m sure is still a child at heart, I keep a special place and the best slice of the cake. There were days when I felt she was my savior. That’s the least I can do.

After them, two arrive together. They met me after the army and right after their wedding, jumping in headfirst without delay, as a very young student at the Kibbutzim Seminar:

Tamar, a fiery redhead, a strong and present woman who taught a course on the philosophy of education and basically made me realize I was in the wrong place, and that what I really needed to study at that stage was philosophy and art in general—a path much more suited for me to enter the world of therapy than education. I drank in her lessons eagerly; every week she gathered beautiful and interesting bouquets of thoughts that ran through my head in disorder. How comforting it was to know these things were already considered, processed, and written, that there was somewhere to read them, that there was a cultural and ideological context. How good it is that there is no limit to all that.

With Tamar came “E’kal’e”, a teacher of the kind you don’t find these days anymore. I can’t believe how much I learned from her in one year and how much of it still passes on to my children. Remember when we used to study nature? Well, “E’kal’e” lived it—not only taught it but still lives it today (I know because later we discovered various connections through different circles, so we had the privilege to meet even before I decided to hold my special party. Unfortunately, we met not only in happy moments). Thanks to “E’kal’e” I know that the bright green leaves of the bougainvillea are not petals, it’s a marketing trick; actually, its flowers are pretty small and unimpressive, the chrysanthemum is a sophisticated inflorescence and not a single ordinary flower, grass knows how to clone itself, I also know the names of all parts of an egg (there’s more than yolk, white, and shell), lots of things about insects, and many facts about the world that might seem unimportant but are really important to me. And I know that Bialik caused one of the most common misunderstandings when he wrote “A Nest for a Bird,” because that’s “E’kal’e”—she writes creative tests and never misses a chance to connect different worlds

They both, city mouse and country mouse, so different, and together they taught me a very important lesson about letting go, about parting in a fitting and precise way. They really encouraged me to stop after one year of studies and start anew at the university, and they were with me afterwards, in spirit.

Sometimes someone sees something in you before you see it yourself. How lucky I was to hear what they had to say and how lucky they were direct enough to tell me, without ego, with a vision of me, and a desire to do good for me. And if I gained all that from just one year of studying at the education college—it was worth it.

I leave the gate open; it’s already pleasant outside in the evening, the garlands hang on the trees, colorful and bright. The table is long, accommodating and nourishing a long row of influencers who opened my heart and changed my directions, lecturers who introduced me to the world of therapy in such a special way, teachers who later became colleagues, professional instructors, workplace managers, coordinators—but it still feels a bit strange to look back on them this way, still feels too close and a bit personal here.

Many moments of grace come to mind now, and I remember that anxiety of a bride setting tables, “But what about that one, and what about the one who once wrote me a letter, and the one who initiated a joint meeting, and even the one who punished me in such a way that I never did something forbidden again,” the list goes on.

It seems the party helped me achieve the goal for which I gathered it—to briefly take off my worried hat and put on the magic hat, even if it usually wasn’t that magical, the hat of the child, the student, to be thankful that at least every few years I was lucky enough to meet someone who understood, who understood me. Who saw something in me and made sure to send it back to me, maybe so I could see it too. I didn’t always succeed, and I didn’t always understand why she bothered. Now I understand, and now I hang that feathered hat back on the hook and put on again one of my current hats—the mom hat, of a mom with a daughter who in a few hours will start her last year of elementary school, a son who will start his first year as a student, and a tiny one who is starting pre-pre-kindergarten, and for the first time will be in a “big kids” class. Today she already told me “I’m not sure I’ll like the teachers, so tell them not to be offended,” and I feel how this hat is heavy but a little less tight on my head, and maybe, just maybe, there’s a chance that my children will meet such wonderful people along the way, and they too will want to organize such wonderful parties one day. And while they are working on their guest list—we can remember them together and I can say, “What wonderful partners I had in raising my children, what wonderful gifts exist beyond my own limits that I couldn’t give myself—they received. How lucky.”