This story is a work of fiction.  Any likeness to a real person is intended and only for fun.

Coy was not young anymore but she was thin and fit and her straight blonde hair shimmered with health. Her eyes sparkled as she logged into her laptop from her home office.  What seemed like a dreary thing, checking in on her students, today seemed to take on more significance.

She looked at her computer screen and felt herself sucked into Facebook.  Yes, it was a time waster and Farmville definitely was an addiction for her, but helped her pass the time when she couldn’t sleep at night. The shifting lights as she seemed to become absorbed into her laptop and travel the World Wide Web was a bit confusing and overwhelming all at the same time.

Maybe there was something strange in her coffee?  Or was she in some bizarre dream?  Coy seemed suddenly able to travel into the pages and enter the worlds of some of her students in class and found herself amazed at what she discovered.  First of all, it was no longer 2010 – but many years in the future if the profile pics and information on the pages were any indication.

For instance, there was Andy.  The paper he had just submitted showed a sharp mind.  Coy often pondered his insecurities when he talked in class.  She had been seeking to encourage him. She was surprised to he had graduated with honors and was now a father of two and held a good job at a promising company.  Had she possibly helped him toward that?  Something in her spirit said, Yes!  She smiled.

She was sucked into another page and saw Sharon. In class this woman was young and full of energy and ideas, but a bit scattered.  Coy wondered what this young woman would do with her passion if it were a bit more focused.  Looking at her information page, Coy discovered that since graduating, Sharon had started her own not-for-profit company and was having an impact on the poor in her community.  According to the comments posted on her page it looked like Sharon had managed to corral some of those ideas and was quite successful and even recently engaged to be married.  Did anything that Coy had taught or invested in this woman help her to get to where she was today?  Most likely.

Coy was sucked back to the present and shook her head, a little dizzy, and sighed as her puppy came to lick her hand, begging to be petted. Maybe she was making a difference in the lives of those she was teaching and through them impacting the world in a positive way.  Maybe, just maybe she was modeling and encouraging her students just enough to make that mild shift that took them on a course they might have otherwise missed if they had not walked into her classroom.

It was then that her dog spoke up to chide her in her feelings of insignificance: “Hey!”

Coy was startled, “Who is that?”

“It’s me, your dog.  You would make a difference in my life if you let me go out to use the yard to do my ‘job’.” 

Coy smiled and rose to let her dog out, and gazing into the sunshine felt encouraged that every little thing she did, as a mom, a wife, a friend and a teacher, (and a pet owner) really truly could be used for things far greater than what she could see right now. 

Time to get back to emailing those students who were late turning in their assignments last night.  Coy had a job to do and she wasn’t going to let them down.