Ste. Em Cures T-2’s Itch

T-2 had a particularly nasty habit. Whenever his eyebrow or temple itched, he’d take the point of his pencil and “scribble” to ease his suffering. I caught him at it, and explained that it was dangerous.


He nodded that he understood. Said, “It might poke my eye out.” Then he smirked and went on about his business of scratching his face with his pencil whenever he thought I wasn’t looking. Each time I caught him I’d go over the same ground again.

And again.

Repeatedly.

He eventually wrote sentences.

To no avail. He would still scratch his itches with his pencil.

His dad brought him to school early one morning. “Deaconess, I want you to see what he’s done. Look at him.” He made the boy tell me how.

The kid was bored the night before, took out his scissors, and cut off his lashes. Only the scissors slipped and he scratched his eyelids.

I looked at my student and couldn’t find any words to say. I let a few seconds pass- I’m certain he knew I was churning inside- then I reached up, took off my glasses, and pulled out my genuine, non-factory, replacement part.

“There! You want that to happen to you? It will if you keep poking things at your eye.”

The kid gasped and stared. “No, ma’am!”

He hasn’t used a pencil for anything but his papers since then.

He tells the other students, “You don’t want to see it… trust me, you don’t want to see it,” but they consider him somewhat of a hero for it nonetheless. It’s sort of a “holy grail” with them, this business of trying to get the deac to take her eye out. But the point remains: He hasn’t used a pencil for anything but his papers since then. Deo volente, cancer will leave his eyes alone.  

Some things come full circle, Aardvark. This acrylic bit is but one more reminder of that which Christ has assumed, and therefore has restored in Himself.