To the office staff at my elementary school,
Thank you. I don’t know whether the class rosters were generated randomly or if you all hand-picked them yourself, but on the day you placed Olivia and me into the same kindergarten class, you introduced me to my best friend. Well, I guess we hated each other at first, but isn’t that how all lifelong friendships start? The next year, you placed Olivia and I into the same first-grade class. By then, we were inseparable. We would monopolize the playground at recess, organizing games of tag or house. The next year, you once again put us in the same second-grade class … and third, fourth, and fifth. The chances of that happening were extremely slim — honestly, at this point it was getting a little suspicious, but neither Olivia nor I were complaining. Throughout the years, we worked our way through the highs and lows of elementary school drama — we whispered secrets when we were supposed to be silently walking in line; we discovered new songs, books, and movies; we partnered up for every school project possible; and we stuck by each others’ sides the whole way. Now, as our friendship reaches its eleventh year, I can not thank you all enough. You changed our lives.
Yours in friendship,
Jessica
To the airline staff at a Wyoming airport,
Five minutes before boarding, six-year-old me turned to my mom at the airport gate to tell her that I needed to go to the bathroom. Hurriedly, we grabbed our bags, rushed to the nearest restroom, and barely boarded the flight in time. As we stepped onto the plane, I looked into my blue, dolphin-embroidered tote bag for the little stuffed moose that I had begged my parents to buy for me at a souvenir shop in Wyoming. I rummaged around, shoving aside my water bottle and my copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, but the moose had disappeared. On the verge of tears, I sat down next to my parents, trying my best to hold myself together. As I slumped in my seat, thinking about the case of the missing moose, I heard a break in your usual pre-takeoff speech: “There’s a moose on the loose from Wyoming!” I looked up, and lo and behold, a smiling flight attendant stood there holding my moose, which must have fallen out of my bag in our haste. It was like Christmas. You showed me that a simple act of kindness goes a long way.
I gotta take off,
Jessica
Graphic by Sesame Gaetsaloe/The Choate News
To Chelsea the gymnast,
I was going to quit gymnastics. Although our coach invited me to join the team, I was not interested in becoming a competitive gymnast. At seven-years-old, I didn’t think I was good enough for competition. Besides, the idea of being pain-stakingly watched and scored by a mean, straight-faced judge did not sound appealing to me. You shared none of this apprehension — you were making headlines as the best competitive gymnast in our town’s history, winning the all-around county title three years in a row, and leading our high school to its first championship in decades. At practice that summer, the head coach of our gym was spotting me while I practiced doing handstands on the training bar. As I kicked up into a handstand, making the extra effort to point my toes and squeeze my legs together because I knew he was watching, he told me that I had a lot of potential and that I was going to be the next Chelsea. That day, when I came home after practice, I found the article about you in the newspaper, cut it out, and clipped it to the calendar that hung in my room. I ran downstairs and told my parents to sign me up for the Level 4 gymnastics team. Thank you, Chelsea, for inspiring me to keep doing gymnastics, a sport that became my life for the next six years and introduced me to the team that became my second family.
Flipping out,
Jessica
To the waiter at Red Lobster,
As you stood waiting to take our order, I was nervous. Your eyes followed my mom as she spoke with my grandpa in Chinese so that she could translate his order into English. I was nervous that you would get impatient or judge us for speaking Chinese. All I wanted to do was fit in — to be just like all the other American families who sat around us. In my town with little diversity, I was tired of sticking out everywhere I went. My mom apologized to you for taking so long to order. “Don’t worry,” you said. “When I’m eating at a restaurant with my family, I also have to translate the menu and translate their orders into Spanish. Take your time.” Just like that, my anxiety was lifted. To my sixth-grade ears, those words were synonymous with: It’s okay to be Asian. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. You showed my family compassion and understanding at a time when I was just beginning to accept my own Asian identity.
Cod bless you,
Jessica
