A - Z Blogging Challenge 04.22.2026

My friends, I think my fingertips are becoming callused with all of this blog writing and 👩‍💻 typing!! They 👩‍💻 will be thankful for our upcoming vacation away, too.  London here we come.

Today is the 19th installment in the 26-day A - Z Blogging Challenge.  This morning I wrote the post that will go live on Monday.  Trying to get the posts written ahead of time that will be published after we go out of town, so some days lately are 2 post-days!!

When I started this project, I never dreamed how many of the glimmers and blessings in my life would revolve around my career as a librarian.  Today's post is another one.  The nineteenth letter of the alphabet is S.  Guess what S is for?

S is for Students

In an earlier post this month I mentioned how blessed I was to have been an elementary school librarian (and high school librarian for a short time, too).  Then in a different post for this challenge, I talked about the blessing that books have brought to my life.  `    

Today, I want to give a shout-out to one of the students who was a glimmer in my life.  On my former blog, I wrote a 2-part post about a very special student named Jenny whom I first met when she was in third grade.  I had hoped to share bits of those posts here today but I don't think it was one of the posts I managed to save when I lost my WordPress blog.  Maybe I will try to rewrite it someday.  But Jenny was and is an amazing person.

Instead, I would like to introduce you to Victoria.  

Wedding Bells

In my 25 years working fulltime as a librarian, so many precious children crossed my path.  Their laughter, their hugs, their kind words made my career what it was.  I started my career as a high school librarian but soon knew that I was better suited to working with the littles.  My own girls were just littles themselves.  

I was hired at an elementary school my third year with the school district.  That October we had a campus-wide Halloween carnival.  Each grade level was responsible for running a booth.  I created a wedding booth in the library where kids could put on wedding garb - white dresses and suit jackets - and marry their friends and their parents.  It was great fun.  In the fuzzy, very blurry photo below I was marrying Lauren.

A few weeks later, my daughters' stepfather and I were married in a small ceremony in my little house.  The faculty and staff generously threw me a shower and all of the kids at school knew that I was going to be a bride.  My sister was my maid of honor.

And my daughters were my flower girls.

Since the wedding took place over the Thanksgiving holidays that year, we didn't go on a honeymoon.  We just had a night at a local hotel that the faculty and staff all chipped in to get for us.  

Back to Work

The girls and I returned to school the following Monday.  When I unlocked the door that morning, a little girl in Lauren's first grade class followed me into the library.  She told me she had a wedding gift for me.  

Victoria had always been one of the little ones I took under my wing.  You couldn't help but notice her as her clothes always smelled like a kitty litter box.  Some days they would be worse than others.  On the really bad days, her teacher would send Victoria to the library to see me.  I always had a change of clothes for her.  She would go into the bathroom and put on the clean clothes then give me her soiled clothes to take home to wash.  The kids were sometimes unkind to Victoria because of the way her clothes smelled so we tried to nip it in the bud first thing in the morning on those bad days.

Victoria's mother never inquired at school about her daughter's clothes.  And thank goodness, no one ever accused me of doing anything inappropriate.  I believe Victoria remained at that school for several years longer but as she got older, she was able to keep her clothes away from the kitties in her house.

A Hallmark Moment

That Monday morning after my wedding weekend, Victoria's clothes seemed ok.  So I was surprised to see her coming to the library so early.  While I turned on the lights and got the library opened up, Victoria dug around in her beaten up backpack for something.  She finally pulled out an ivory colored greeting card.  It had once had a satiny fabric finish but looked a little dogeared and dirty when Victoria handed it to me.  The front of the card read "congratulations on your wedding." 

As I opened the card to read the sentiment inside, Victoria stopped me a moment.  She explained that she hadn't had the money to buy a card for me but had found this one in the dumpster at the projects where she lived.  Victoria said she knew the message inside was inscribed to another bride and groom but she thought the card was so pretty.  That sweet angel wanted to do something special for me.  

And boy, did she.  I think I still have that card today in a pouch of other keepsakes from that now very distant chapter of my life.  That was undoubtedly one of the sweetest acts of kindness I ever received.  

I wonder where my little Victoria is tonight.

Your Turn

Oh, girls, all these walks down Memory Lane have tugged on my old heart strings.  I hope you can see how very blessed I was with the multitude of glimmers that were sprinkled about my life throughout my career.  

God bless you, Victoria and my darling Jenny, too.

Off to bed, my friends.  Thank you for spending a bit of your day here with me.

Hugs and kisses,