Small World

February 6, 2012/Memory Lane
It all started when I got the following email:

Dear Leighann,

Just a few minutes ago, my husband forwarded me a link to your story at the TribLive web site about Ryan, your gorgeous little boy! I loved the interviews with your doctors and your family!

My husband is Kenny Smith, and he sent me the article to say, “Incredible! These two “kids” were my students when I taught at Heritage, and they were in my choir as well!”

And yet there is more: I recognized you and your husband and I couldn’t figure out why. Then it dawned on me: I read your blog for a while several months ago. I think I found your blog from a link at another blog, but I had lost the URL a while ago, so I had no idea you were in the Pittsburgh area now!

Kenny and I live with our boys in XX, on a little hobby farm. I think it would be so fun to meet your family. Would it be weird for you and Henry to hang out with an old high school teacher…as friends? I’d love to find a date where you guys can come for dinner – a Saturday or Sunday.


Sincerely,

~liz smith


I think I read the email twice before laughing out loud and forwarding it to Henry.


We connected with the Smiths this past Saturday at their hobby farm about an hour from our house. They have sheep! And chickens! And a guard donkey!


Natalie jumped at the chance to hold a chicken:
The night was surreal as we caught up over dinner… how we all ended up in Pittsburgh and everything in between. I just kept thinking, “Ohmygosh! I’m hanging out with my high school English teacher.” Like this moment –
Where my old teacher is serving my kids brownie sundaes. Cuh-ray-Z!
We talked about kids from our school… every single one of YOU! – okay, kidding. Not really. Not every single one… mostly just the ones in our graduating class and what we know of them now. We figured out that Mr. Smith, a-hem, I mean Kenny was 22 when I was in 9th grade so he’s really only 8 years older than Henry and I… less of a difference than between me and two of my siblings. He also reminded me he adopted a kitten from one of my family’s mama cats… the kitten was part of his life up until just a few years ago. HIS KIDS MET MY KITTEN. Seriously.
Speaking of kids, here’s the lot of them.
And here’s us… all grown up and married:
Henry and I had such a good time reconnecting with Kenny and meeting his wife, Liz. We hope to get together again soon!
And hey, all you HA folks, give Mr. Smith a shout out, won’t you?
Leighann/6 Comments/0 Likes/Memory Lane, Pittsburgh
Next/Previous

Related posts

Home to New York

June 10, 2015

Cake made us friends.

January 27, 2014

Papa is home

September 18, 2013

Comments (6)

  • Lisa / February 6, 2012 / Reply

    That is so cool! Who would have thunk it, being “adult” friends with a teacher from your youth. I find that amazing. I keep forgetting just how tall Henry is.

  • Courtney / February 6, 2012 / Reply

    that is amazing!!

  • ~liz / February 6, 2012 / Reply

    we had such a great night with you all! looking forward to many more… (it’s funny that you included my original email in your blog post, as i included your original response in my blog post. 🙂 )
    ~liz

  • Chris T / February 6, 2012 / Reply

    That’s my favorite blog entry yet.

  • Anonymous / February 7, 2012 / Reply

    How cool! We have often wondered what happened to “Mr. Smith”! We would love to be able to contact him, can you forward me an email address??? I remember being so upset one day when Jesse and I were fighting and Mr. Smith saying, “Well it’s not like you’re going to marry him”! Little did he know 🙂 Mr. Smith also saved me from piano! He told my mother to let me stop! I loved him for that, I really had no natural talent 🙂
    Amanda Luhn

  • Linda / February 10, 2012 / Reply

    Well that is simply amazing! I enjoyed this story…and yes…it is a small world!

Add comment

(c) 2016 Leighann Marquiss