Miss Dorothy Naftel was in my life for only a couple of years. I have not seen her since the last day of my second grade year.

I remember her smiling.

I remember her kindness and forgivenss of my minor sins.

I remember her instilling confindence in me and delivering small bits of justice from time to time.

I remember a Valentine's card she sent me a year or so after she retired and that I kept for many, many years.

If pressed, I could not conjure a single sliver of a memory of her that was anything less than perfect.

There is no one I have met before or since for whom I could say the same.