I was reflecting on my life this week, feeling grateful for so many opportunities and so many people who’ve encouraged me. I thought of how often we don’t realize the imprint we have on someone else’s life. I thought of Juanita Stanley Holman, the former Executive Director of California Literacy (a former statewide nonprofit organization).

In the mid-80’s, while leaving the Cal Lit office one day, Juanita pulled me aside and asked if I would apply for the Director of Training position. “I am totally unqualified,” I told her. “I have no experience in ESL at all.” (ESL is English as a Second Language.)

“You can learn that,” she said. “Please consider it.”   

I did, and I took the job. One of the greatest compliments I ever received came after I’d been in the position about a year. Mary Stout was sitting in my office and she confessed, “You know, when you started, we thought you’d never last.” I knew the very fact that she would say this means I proved them wrong. I lasted and I belonged.

But the truth is Mary’s suspicion was right. I was in over my head. I was not experienced in a position of such responsibility. But Juanita saw something others didn’t see, and surrounded me with the resources to grow into the job. I appreciate that. And I must say, any success I’ve brought to the field is part of Juanita’s legacy.

It goes on from there.  Only a few months into my job we had a critical situation in Pasadena. Marion Corp, at 70+ years of age, desperately needed a tutor trainer to help her, but there was no one. By default I went to co-train a class of new tutors with her. I had attended one ESL workshop, but had never tutored anyone. I was totally unqualified. But I did it. There was more on my mind than training tutors at that workshop. I was on the lookout for who could become an apprentice trainer with Marion. 

I found that apprentice – Ellen Herring. I don’t know what I saw. It was a hunch. But after the workshop I pulled her aside and told her she seemed to catch on well, and would she consider becoming a tutor trainer with the program. She agreed. She was terrific! She not only became a trainer with our nonprofit organization, but she later became an ESL instructor at Pasadena City College, very respected and very successful. She wrote curriculum for various projects and was a shining star! She conducted Pasadena’s ESL tutor training and recruited other trainers to come in behind her.

Through the years, I began to think that Ellen must have been skilled and experienced in ESL before that workshop, right? I got a chance to visit with her a few months before she passed away and I asked.  “So Ellen, back when you took that first workshop and I asked you to think about becoming a trainer, were you already experienced? Had you already been teaching ESL?”

“No,” she told me. “In fact, when I went home and told my husband about your request, he laughed. He told me ‘You’re a math person, not language’.”  

I still beam with pride at that, knowing that somehow I had a part in unlocking in Ellen the treasure that she became to the world of adult literacy. I’m warmed by the thought.

It occurs to me that I did with Ellen what Juanita had done with me. Planted a seed. Then nurtured it and surrounded it with support. That’s how it grows, isn’t it? That’s how we grow. Maybe today you’ll see some hidden gem you can’t explain in someone and you’ll plant a seed that causes them to blossom. You’ll nudge them. You’ll cause them to uncover a gift, a talent we need in this world.

Last week I wrote about growing flowers in my garden. This week I realize that what I really like to grow is people. I like to see them bud and take in the sun’s rays. I like to see them flourish in this garden called Life.