Chapter 15 - Mrs. McCosh

I loved my high school English teacher, Mrs. McCosh.  She was always happy.  She was passionate about literature and writing and grammar and teaching and she made me want to be a better person.  I was lucky enough to have her for freshman English and as soon as I had the opportunity, I found my way back through her doors my senior year for an elective.  I didn’t care what she was teaching.  Whatever it was, I was taking it. 

I lost my English book my senior year in October.  I think someone took it because one day it was just gone.  I didn’t want to upset her, so I just grabbed another one off the back counter and used it for the rest of the year.  Two days before graduation, when we turned in our texts, she came to me and told me that my book was missing.  I told her I’d turned it in.  I knew I turned in the substitute book but I loved her (and assumed she loved me) and I thought for sure she would let it slide.  Boy was I wrong.  She made me pay the $28 for that book and she threatened to hold my diploma until she got it!  She taught me a lesson I will never forget about trying to take advantage of a friendship.  I’ve never done it again.  That’s the kind of person she was.  The stuff she taught us, the life stuff, she didn’t learn that in her education classes.  The fact that she forced me to come clean about that book… I’ll never forget it.  She could have let it slide.  She could have written it off.  But she didn’t.  She held me accountable.  She made me hold myself accountable.  That’s a life lesson that will stick with me forever.  I became a teacher and a better person because of her. 

The world lost Mrs. Jacqueline McCosh in 2010 to a spinal cord injury caused by a car accident.  A tragic ending to an amazing life.
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