~*MrS. cAnTeR*~

Mrs. Canter is one of the most influential people that has ever entered my life, who wasn't a family member. It's kind of funny to answer the question Who's your role model with my teacher, Mrs. Canter. But it's the truth and I really did love her with my whole heart. Mrs. Canter was a chorus teacher at my school for 13 years. Before that she had been teaching for a very long time. She had made music her life's work. I enjoyed all the songs she picked out, most were very religious. When I was in the 6th grade, I became very depressed and sad. And I remember the only class I never felt stressed out in, or sad in was chorus. I know a lot of it had to due with Mrs. Canter. She taught with something other then her brain, with her heart and so few teachers due that today. Every time we got into some sort of a discussion Mrs. Canter would relate it to her life, I had to say I knew a lot about her family and I hadn't even know them. She also really loved her Granddaughter. She was always talking about her, it was a shame that I met her wonderful family under those circumstances.

In the year 2000 Mrs. Canter was diagnosed with cancer. No one ever really knew what had happened. All we knew was that she had stopped teaching and there was a long term substitute. There were rumors spreading faster then the black plague that she was dead, or had some incurable disease. I was hoping that her situation wasn't that bad. But eventually I finally heard she had cancer. It never really hit me because I never saw her that year once she went in for treatment. But the next year she was back. Over the summer she had gone through remission. The doctors told her there was no trace of cancer in her body. I was extremely happy that my teacher was coming back and better then ever. Her class began to fill my soul, and for the first time ever I had a solo. Everyone told me I sang really good and suddenly my life had a purpose. She gave me that, she also helped me see what I'd been trying to deny for years. That in utter truth I wanted to be a teacher. But once again she was diagnosed with cancer. For awhile she kept coming to school. She told us one day she would loose her hair and that she was shopping for a wig. I remember the first day I saw that wig. It was a realization she wasn't as well as we all thought. But after a couple of months she seemed as if she was getting better and her hair was starting to grow back. Well all thought she'd make it, but then she stopped coming.

Every once in awhile she'd come back, but her visits became fewer and fewer. I was hoping she'd come back the next year but instead a new teacher was hired and I'd never see her alive again. On a Saturday morning in December right before Christmas Mrs. Canter passed away in what I believe was her sleep. I was devastated and so were a lot of my friends, it was really sad to see this person who everyitme I saw her was so alive just suddenly die from something that seemed she didn't deserve and I still cry thinking of all the pain she went through. I was fortunate enough to go to her viewing and her funeral and get to meet her family. Her daughter was very sweet and very nice. I didn't get to meet the other two. At the funeral they played a song that will always seem the perfect song of how I feel about her. "The Wind Beneath My Wings." The lady who sang it, sang it so beautifully and from that point on I didn't stop crying till we had left the funeral and were in McDonalds eating lunch. The viewing was devastating because I couldn't even recognize her. But something my friends mom told me made me realize how lucky I truly was. "Be thankful you were blessed to even know her, the new 6th graders never even got that chance, but you did." And I took that into consideration and realized, she was right. I was truly blessed to even know her. And I'm glad I got that opportunity. When her daughter Lisa gave her eulogy she said something that also struck me very hard and made me realize that it was the same for me. "If I grow up to be half the woman my mother was then I will consider myself successful." She was right, and I feel the same way. If I grow up to be half the teacher, woman, mother, wife, daughter, or any of those things that Mrs. Canter was I will consider myself the most successful person in the world!