The letter I should have wrote to Mr. Christianson: Thank you for going to bat for me, for bending the rules, for talking the principal into letting me graduate even though technically, I had too many absences, for seeing my talent and telling me I had it, for knowing that I needed a break and giving me one so that I knew talent is not everything, so that I knew you need someone in your corner, someone who would step up like you did, to help out a kid in trouble when they needed it, without saying anything about me sometimes showing up to your Social Studies class smelling of beer and cigarettes from the night before without making me feel like an outsider, because I already felt like an outsider, but I don’t anymore.