Marina Jurjevic

When I hear laughter echoing from the park outside my window here in Zagreb, Croatia, it pulls me back to the classroom. The sound is thinner now, softer, without the sharp edges of chairs scraping floors or the occasional chaos of thirty children with too much energy. But it stirs something in me.

Just last week, I was walking to the market when I saw a familiar face. He was taller, broader, and his beard streaked with grey surprised me. It was Filip, one of my students from years ago. He was the boy who could never sit still, always drumming his pencil on the desk or whispering to his neighbor when he thought I wasn’t looking. He drove me mad at times. But I also remember the stories he wrote. While other students barely filled their pages, he would write entire worlds. "Filip the dreamer," I used to call him.

I didn’t expect him to recognize me, but he did. He called out, "Gospođa Blažević!" and crossed the street with a wide smile. We stood there on the pavement, catching up like neighbors. He told me he’s an architect now, with two children of his own. He laughed, admitting that he sometimes sees his own restless energy in his son.

Before we parted, he said something that stayed with me. “You probably don’t remember, but you once told me that my stories were worth something. You said I could make things if I believed in myself. I think that’s why I kept going when things got hard.”

I walked home slowly that day, carrying not just my groceries but also a quiet pride. It made me think about those years of stress, of rushing between school and home, of falling into bed exhausted. At 67, I finally have the time to sit and read, to play with my grandchildren, to reflect. But moments like this remind me that my work, noisy and demanding as it was, ripples out in ways I never imagined.

And yes, I still romanticize it. But perhaps it deserves a little romance.