The World Back Then

This is the world, two views of it.  It emerged again unexpectedly, in my income tax file, where it had remained for several years after its stint on the refrigerator came to an end.  Here is what is written around the circumference of the world, then  a much smaller world than now for its author:
   "Dear Nana, Papa and Andrew, Thank you for coming to my classroom.  It meant the world to me that you came.  I love that you tuck out time to be with me."  It's dated 5/26/10.
  Almost seven years ago, and half of his lifetime, so the  memory of that particular  day will doubtless be lost to him.  There were many such events during  those years when we showed up at school to see and listen to the stuff of childhood.  Those occasions in the days that seemed as if they would last forever tend to blend together in the haze of memory, but not this day, not to me.  The emotion of that day will last forever, and not because of the sweet classroom thank you pictured above.
     The three of us, including toddler in tow, showed up at school at the appointed time, and went to his classroom.  There he was, a small figure sitting at a table in the very back of the room.  He looked up and saw us. But the program was behind schedule, the students not yet prepared to read their stories, essays really.  So we left his room to go down the hall to visit his brother's room, and after that visit, returned to the first classroom. The room was crowded with kids and parents and grandparents, not enough seats for everybody.  So we stood in the front, behind the other adults.  I peered around them and saw our student, still at his table but pressing his hands against his eyes.  I knew what that meant--he was trying to hold back tears.  In a very short time the teacher called his name, for him to read his story, and, acknowledging our presence with a smile, he went to the front of the room and delivered his reading. (I will say it was the best of the class, but I may have a bias.)  Afterwards, I asked him why he'd looked so sad, and he said it was because he thought we'd left before he read his part.
   Even then, I felt a pang of love mixed with sadness, and it only deepens as time goes by.  I realize that it's time gone by and the players have moved on, but that doesn't ease the heartbreak.  I'm pretty much hating  memories these days anyway.  Nostalgia.  What's it good for?