Tender Mercies

I drove home from the rink, my heart filled with mixed emotions. "You were her favorite coach," her mom had said to me after the lesson. Do you really have to leave? It had been a decade since I began coaching ice skating in high school in San Jose. Coaching was what I did through college to pay for ice time, and I took it with me to Alaska.  As a younger skater, I never wanted to coach. I never thought I was good enough to teach others the art of figure skating, nor thought anyone would hire me. When I turned 16, coaching group lessons at the rink was the only option for me if I wanted to keep up my lessons with my coach and keep competing because I needed a way to pay for my ice time and lessons. And so the journey began.  I learned that while I was not as strong with the technical side of teaching older, more advanced skaters, I found a love for teaching the basics to younger children. I also loved teaching adults.  Coaching brought to me a s...

It's been nearly 10 years since we first met in California. What started out as just seeing each other once in a while at the ice rink turned into a friendship where we saw each other 6 days a week--encouraging and motivating each other through jump repetitions and new spin variations or coaching little ones how to skate on one foot. There were laughs, tears, sweat, food, and silly pictures involved. We had one thing in common, and that was figure skating.  And yet, despite the high school graduations, cross-country moves, college, vet school, marriage, and time zones, we have still stayed friends. It was the day-in-day-out bonding we had at the ice rink back in 2005-2008 that helped us get to know each other on a deep level that could withstand life's changes.  Even now, nearly a decade after moving apart, we still text, send handwritten letters, and talk on the phone occasionally.  We aren't sole mates. We might have different religious perspectiv...

I never wanted to be a figure skating coach.  It is just something that I started to do when I turned 16 to help pay for my ice time and my lessons.  And then I continued to do it to support myself when I went to college.  Now I am living in Alaska, and I still find myself coaching. Maybe I do like this coaching thing after all. I think I like it best because I get to interact with so many people.  I teach Learn-to-Skate lessons at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, and the kids that I have met and skated with have just about melted my heart.  I love them so much.  For example, at the end of the most recent session, one of my students ran up to me before class and handed me a picture she had colored.  On the bottom of the page she wrote, "I like you. Laura."  Seriously the cutest thing ever!  Another wonderful moment that happened more than once occurred as I was walking out of the rink to my car.  As I walked ac...