<\/p>\n
I’m 34 now, but I still remember riding Bus 14 with Mr. Earl from fourth through eighth grade.<\/p>\n
I was the quiet kid nobody wanted to sit beside.<\/p>\n
I wore thick glasses.<\/p>\n
I rarely spoke.<\/p>\n
And every afternoon, when the other kids laughed and crowded around their friends, I sat alone near the back of the bus.<\/p>\n
So I started leaving little notes on my seat.<\/p>\n
Nobody was supposed to read them.<\/p>\n
They were just the things I couldn’t say out loud.<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody sat with me today.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThey called me four-eyes again.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cI don’t want to go back to school tomorrow.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Sometimes I wrote about homework.<\/p>\n Sometimes I wrote about my mother.<\/p>\n Sometimes I simply wrote:<\/p>\n \u201cToday was a bad day.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Then I’d fold the paper and leave it beneath the edge of the seat.<\/p>\n I assumed the notes disappeared.<\/p>\n Maybe the wind carried them away.<\/p>\n Maybe the cleaning crew threw them out.<\/p>\n I never wondered about them again.<\/p>\n Until I was 34.<\/p>\n One rainy afternoon, someone knocked on my door.<\/p>\n When I opened it, an elderly woman stood there holding an old shoebox.<\/p>\n \u201cMy name is Margaret,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n I recognized her immediately.<\/p>\n She was Mr. Earl’s widow.<\/p>\n My heart sank.<\/p>\n \u201cI’m sorry,\u201d I whispered.<\/p>\n She smiled sadly.<\/p>\n \u201cHe talked about you often.\u201d<\/p>\n Then she handed me the shoebox.<\/p>\n I opened it.<\/p>\n My breath caught.<\/p>\n Inside were hundreds of folded pieces of paper.<\/p>\n I recognized my handwriting immediately.<\/p>\n My hands began shaking.<\/p>\n \u201cNo\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Margaret nodded.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are 312.\u201d<\/p>\n I sat down.<\/p>\n He had saved every single one.<\/p>\n Every note.<\/p>\n Every bad day.<\/p>\n Every little sentence I thought nobody would ever see.<\/p>\n Margaret sat beside me.<\/p>\n \u201cHe found the first one beneath the seat one afternoon.\u201d<\/p>\n I looked down at the papers.<\/p>\n \u201cHe started checking the seat every day after that.\u201d<\/p>\n I couldn’t speak.<\/p>\n \u201cHe read them every night.\u201d<\/p>\n Then she opened another compartment in the box.<\/p>\n Inside were letters.<\/p>\n Dozens of them.<\/p>\n Written in Mr. Earl’s handwriting.<\/p>\n But never sent.<\/p>\n The first one said:<\/p>\n \u201cDear boy on Bus 14,<\/strong><\/p>\n You don’t know me very well yet, but I want you to know something. Being alone today doesn’t mean you’ll always be alone.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Another said:<\/p>\n \u201cDear young man,<\/strong><\/p>\n Someone calling you names doesn’t make those names true.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Another:<\/p>\n \u201cYou may not believe this now, but there are people you haven’t met yet who are going to be grateful you stayed.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n I read letter after letter.<\/p>\n He had written one almost every week.<\/p>\n Sometimes he wrote about courage.<\/p>\n Sometimes he wrote about kindness.<\/p>\n Sometimes he simply wrote:<\/p>\n \u201cI hope tomorrow is easier.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Then I found the final letter.<\/p>\n It was dated shortly before Mr. Earl died.<\/p>\n It said:<\/p>\n \u201cThe boy on Bus 14 made it\u2026 and I always knew he would.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n I wiped my eyes.<\/p>\n Then I noticed something underneath.<\/p>\n A single handwritten line.<\/p>\n I read it.<\/p>\n And froze.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you’re reading this, please do one thing for me: find another child who feels the way you once did\u2014and sit beside them.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n I couldn’t speak.<\/p>\n Margaret smiled through her tears.<\/p>\n \u201cHe always said you would understand what he meant.\u201d<\/p>\n I looked at the box.<\/p>\n Then at the old notes.<\/p>\n Then I realized something.<\/p>\n Mr. Earl hadn’t saved those notes because they were important to him.<\/p>\n He had saved them because I was important to him.<\/strong><\/p>\n The next Monday, I went to a local elementary school where I volunteered.<\/p>\n During lunch, I noticed a boy sitting alone at the end of a table.<\/p>\n He was wearing glasses.<\/p>\n His tray was untouched.<\/p>\n I walked over.<\/p>\n \u201cMind if I sit here?\u201d<\/p>\n He looked surprised.<\/p>\n Then he shrugged.<\/p>\n \u201cOkay.\u201d<\/p>\n I sat down.<\/p>\n For several minutes, neither of us spoke.<\/p>\n Then he quietly asked:<\/p>\n \u201cWhy are you sitting with me?\u201d<\/p>\n I smiled.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause someone once did the same thing for me.\u201d<\/p>\n He looked at me.<\/p>\n \u201cWho?\u201d<\/p>\n I thought about Bus 14.<\/p>\n About Mr. Earl.<\/p>\n About 312 little notes that had never disappeared.<\/p>\n \u201cA man named Earl.\u201d<\/p>\n The boy smiled faintly.<\/p>\n And somehow, in that moment, I understood the final lesson Mr. Earl had left me.<\/p>\n He hadn’t saved those notes so I would remember how lonely I had been.<\/p>\n He saved them so I would remember what kindness could do.<\/strong><\/p>\n Years earlier, I thought nobody was reading my notes.<\/p>\n I was wrong.<\/p>\n Someone was listening.<\/p>\n Someone cared.<\/p>\n And because of him, I knew what to do when I finally saw another lonely kid.<\/p>\n I sat beside him.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Boy on Bus 14 I’m 34 now, but I still remember riding Bus 14 with Mr. Earl from fourth through eighth grade. I was the quiet kid nobody … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/senglee168.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/senglee168.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/senglee168.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/senglee168.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/senglee168.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21754"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/senglee168.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21755,"href":"https:\/\/senglee168.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21754\/revisions\/21755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/senglee168.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/senglee168.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/senglee168.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}