I have a best friend that has been my best friend since we were 6 years old.

She is beautiful and smart and talented and brave. She is an amazing spirit full of life, and light, and love, and she shares that spirit everyday with her students.

Last week she was awarded for her efforts as an outstanding teacher, by her students and colleagues. I'm so glad that she is appreciated in her career and am so grateful that she is still apart of my life 24 years after we met at the bus stop.

I could never be a teacher. I do not have the patience, time, energy, or stomach for being a teacher. Teachers are selfless and giving, and those are two things I am not, but thank the good Lord Erin is. The world is better because she exist and the children of Hinsdale are smarter because they've been taught by her.

Congratulations to Erin for being the best teacher ever!

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