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The Parable of the Rising Rocket
He taught science, yes—but more than that, he taught life.
Not from a distant podium,
but beside riverbanks, under starry skies, and out on the frozen tributary
where his students would skate while he slipped and laughed in his shoes.
They called him “sir,”
but to many, he was the only steady voice of encouragement they’d ever known.
One boy, who had no father, found in him someone who listened,
someone who showed up—not just at school, but on weekends, with fishing poles in hand
and makeshift mosquito punk glowing in the dusk.
They built rockets together—sleek, hand-painted, dreams in miniature.
Big Bertha. The X-ray. Even the rebel rocket with a forbidden engine
that tore through the sky and never came down.
Some said it vanished.
The teacher smiled.
He always believed it just kept going.
They held contests to land rockets in hula hoops,
measured altitudes with homemade tools,
burned tires by the river with quiet permission,
and whispered stories into cassette tapes to play at school dances.
But the greatest lesson he ever taught them
was that learning is not limited to books.
It happens in the sound of laughter on cold nights,
in the thrill of ignition,
in the quiet trust of a teacher who shows up and stays.
When it came time to part, the students gathered,
and from a record player, a melody played:
“To Sir, with Love.”
And in that moment, he realized
he had launched something greater than rockets.
He had launched hearts.
Some of them would go on to write books,
some to build houses, raise families, drive trucks, teach others—
but all of them carried a piece of those years with them,
like a glowing ember tucked in the coat pocket of memory.
And the rocket?
The one that never came back?
Maybe it’s still rising.
Maybe it always will.
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