The fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Thompson, stood up one day and told the students, “I love you all” while she seemingly excluded a student named Teddy.

Mrs. Thompson had watched Teddy the year before and noticed that he didn’t play well with the other children, that his clothes were messy and that he constantly needed a bath. And Teddy could be unpleasant.

“His clothes are always very dirty,” she wrote in his file. “His academic level is very low and he withdraws into himself.”

“This ruling was based on what I observed during the year,” she continued. “He does not play with children and his clothes are dirty. He always needs the bathroom.”

Later, Mrs. Thompson confessed that he was so grim that she took pleasure in marking his papers with a red pen. She would put a bold X on it and write “Fail” at the top.

One day, when the principal asked her to review the previous school records for each student, she was caught by surprise at Teddy’s file.

•His first grade teacher wrote: “Teddy is an intelligent, talented child who does his work carefully and in an orderly manner.”

• The second grade teacher: “Teddy is an excellent student and is loved by his classmates, but he is troubled by his mother’s cancer.”

• As for the third grade teacher, he wrote: “The death of his mother had a hard impact on him. He tried his best, but his father was not interested in him, and that life in his house would soon affect him if some measures were not taken.”

•While the fourth grade teacher wrote: “Teddy is a withdrawn student who does not show interest in studying, has no friends, and falls asleep during class.”

Here, Mrs. Thompson realized the problem and felt ashamed of herself.

Her situation worsened when the students brought her Christmas presents wrapped with beautiful ribbons—except for the student Teddy.

His gift was wrapped in a grocery store bag.

Mrs. Thompson was in pain as she opened Teddy’s gift, and the students laughed.

His gift to her was a necklace consisting of diamonds, missing stones, and a perfume bottle with only a quarter of the bottle remaining.

Teddy’s classmates stopped laughing when their teacher expressed her admiration for the beauty of the necklace and the perfume and thanked him warmly.

She wore the necklace and put some of that perfume on her clothes.
Teddy did not go home directly after school that day.

Rather, he waited to meet her and said, “Your smell today is like my mother’s smell.”

Then the teacher burst into tears because Teddy brought her the bottle of perfume that his mother used to use and found in his teacher the smell of his late mother.

She began to pay special attention to him, and his mind began to regain its activity. By the end of the year, Teddy became the most distinguished student in the class.

Later, she found a note from Teddy, who wrote that she was the best teacher he had ever met.

Years later, Mrs. Thompson received an invitation to attend Teddy’s graduation ceremony from medical school. He signed it, “Your son, Teddy.”

After several years, this teacher was surprised to receive an invitation from the Faculty of Medicine to attend the graduation ceremony of the class of that year, signed in the name of your son, Teddy.

She attended the graduation wearing the same necklace and smelled of the same perfume he gave her many years before.

Theodore “Teddy” Stoddard became a doctor and owner of the Stoddard Center for the treatment of cancer.

Note: The original version of this story was written by Elizabeth Silance Ballard and published in Home Life magazine in 1976.  It was not represented as being a true story but rather as a piece of fiction.  It was later republished in the magazine in 1976 with the notation that it was one of the most requested stories in the magazine’s history.

☆☆☆☆☆

IN GOD WE TRUST

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