Nancy Robrecht

5th grade: I receive the prestige of the fast reading group. I accept this honor as if I had been expecting it all along. My eleven-year-old mind doesn’t analyze how I went from struggling to thriving. I don’t wonder about the years I spent in remedial reading. I don’t stop to thank my mother for homeschooling me during fourth grade. It never occurs to me she might have preferred to do something besides sit and read with a child for hours on end. I am not even aware of the chronic depression she fought to be able to help me. I just know I feel happy and brilliant.