Thread by @JamilJanKochai

Let me tell you a story. This is Susan Lung. She taught me to read and write in a single year when I was 7 years old. I've been looking for Susan, hoping to thank her in person, for almost twenty years. And then she surprised me at my reading last night.

I came to the US at 1 and a half years old, but I grew up in a household that only spoke Pashto & Farsi, so when I started kindergarten, I didn't know a word of English. I don't think my teacher knew how to handle an ESL student. He used to punish me for not understanding his

directions. We moved a lot in those days as my father searched for work and I went to three diffrent schools in 1 year. I continued to struggled with English. Then, after first grade ended, my family went back to Afghanistan for the summer. I fell in love with Logar, but...

But I'd completely forgotten all the English I'd learned in school! I remember on the morning of my first day in 2nd grade, I could only recall 10 letters from the alaphabet. I was was way behind and on track to be left back. But then I had the fortune of meeting Ms. Lung

Ms. Lung sat with me almost everysingle day after school, giving me extra lessons in reading and writing so I could catch up with the rest of the class. By the end of the year, I'd learned to read and write, and by third grade, I was winning awards for reading comprehension.

After that, my family moved a few times more and I lost track of Ms. Lung. For years afterward, all throughout highschool and college, I tried to find Ms. Lung, to thank her for everything she'd done for me. I searched google and social media. I called my old school and visited

The district office. But I kept hitting deadends. The main problem was that I didn't know Ms. Lung's first name! She'd always just been Ms. Lung to me. In my mid 20s, I'd pretty much given up on the search. I figured Ms. Lung had moved on to a new state, a new life. But a few...

years earlier, after 99 Nights in Logar came out, somone reached out to me out of the blue on Facebook. It was Ms. Lung's husband! Apparently Allen Lung heard about an article I wrote for LitHub where I mentioned Ms. Lung. He asked me if I wanted to speak with her that night.

My family and I all gathered together for the call. My parents had been wanting to thank Ms. Lung for years as well. When I finally got the chance to hear Ms. Lung's voice, tears welled up in my eyes. I told her that everything I'd accomplished I owed to her, and that I thought

of her all the time and that I'd been searching for her for years. We all cried that night. Unfortunately, this was at the height of the pandemic, and we were still qurantining at the time. We promised to meet in the future. After that, my wife and I had a child, the Afghan

Government collapsed, my beloved grandmother died, I finished at Stanford, and I published The Haunting of Hajji Hotak. It was a hectic time and we lost touch. But then, last night, after my reading, Ms. Lung's husband, Allen, rushed up to me, introduced himself, and brought

me over to Ms. Lung, and seven year old me finally got to hug my 2nd grade teacher again. We chatted and smiled and cried a litte. I signed her book and tried to write on the page what I couldn't express with my voice. I took down their numbers and invited them for dinner.

My father always used to say in Pashto that every child is a rocket filled with fuel and all they need is a single spark to lift off into the sky. Ms. Lung, he said, was my spark. Throughout my life, I've been blessed to encounter a series of remarkable teachers that have

given me their time and consideration and knowledge, but everything really began with Ms. Lung. And I thought it was important that people hear her story, and that they know how much one teacher, in one year, can change a child's entire life.

Thank you for all the kind comments, especially from the teachers! I know how often teachers are overworked, underpaid and mistreated in this country, but a good teacher can mean the world to a student struggling with a new language or a new community. Wishing you all the best!

When I found this photo in an old box ten years ago, I almost lost my mind when I saw that Mrs. Lung's first name wasn't there! I felt like a detective running into another deadend. It was so frustrating!!

For those asking, heres the link for my new book "The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories": penguinrandomhouse.com/books/667619/t…