Blossom

A professional songwriter friend of mine and I launch a volunteer after school mentoring program and Blossom is referred to us by social services. She is 12-years old. One evening as the kids are singing, I notice she is staring at the lyrics handout. She hides it well, but something is wrong. This American-born girl can't read.

When it is time for the kids to be picked up, I tell Blossom to ask her mother to come to the music room. I need to talk to this woman whom I have never seen before and know nothing about. And she comes in, eyeing me nervously with four little children in tow. We sit facing each other, mother to mother. I speak softly and gently, "Why can't Blossom read?", I ask. And as if a dam breaks open, she responds in a sudden, frantic torrent of broken English with a thick accent. "I ask for help! I talk to the teachers! I try and try! No one will listen to me! No one will help her," she wails.

"A 12-year old girl who can't read?", I think to myself. "How is this possible? How humiliating for this beautiful young lady about to start middle school."

I look over at Blossom crying in shame. I look into her mother's eyes. "I will help her," I hear myself say. "Bring her to my home every Sunday for 2 hours. I will teach her to read."

As I sit on their living room couch, I learn the family is Muslim, the mother from Nazareth, Israel, the father from Syria. I tell them I am Jewish lest this will somehow alter their desire for me to tutor their daughter. To my surprise, they are happy with this disclosure and express their gratitude with cups of tea and a plate of homemade baklava.

I take Blossom to the library for books. I assess her reading. I am appalled. I call the school and arrange a formal meeting with Blossom's teachers. "How can this happen?", I challenge them. They tell me that in the third grade, Blossom was determined to have an auditory learning disability. I am told that reading isn't taught after 3rd grade, so since she couldn't keep up with the other children, she was placed in a special education tract. And, as I see it, essentially forgotten. Here she is, entering 6th grade, and she is unsure of how to sound out vowels. I can hardly believe it. It's pitiful. But Blossom is hungry...ravenous...to learn.

That was three years ago. My involvement in the after school program has long since ended, but my mentoring Blossom continues today. She is 15 now and wears a hijab unlike the other women of her family. In a high school rampant with teenage pregnancies, her head covering is her unspoken declaration of modesty and self-assuredness. In my home, her learning extends beyond books. She delights in frying perfect latkes and shares in the lighting of Chanukah candles with three generations of my family. Her mother pays me in tabbouleh with fresh mint and stuffed grape leaves with rice.

And Blossom reads abundantly..at about a sixth grade level right now. In spite of her challenges, she has a fierce determination to keep practicing and improving. She calls me on the phone five or six evenings each week and we go over lists of vocabulary words together.

And as long as Blossom works hard, I will continue to push her and encourage her...and be there for her.

Some day I hope to dance at her wedding.