The amazing Kate Casey.

Welcome back for another episode of Reality Life with Kate Casey.

And welcome back for the Saturday series episode.

And I think it's this most special episode this week because many of us are having graduations for our children.

It's their last day of school.

And I just think teachers are so special.

I was recently scrolling through TikTok, and I found a video from Eli McCann

talking about his teacher, Mrs. Yates.

I don't know exactly what happened, but somewhere in the middle of it, I just started crying.

And it was like the good kind of cry, the kind that kind of sneaks up on you because something that somebody says just kind of reaches directly into part of your chest that you forgot existed.

And for me, it took me straight back to fifth grade, East Bradford Elementary School, Westchester, Pennsylvania, and Mrs. Helena Graham's classroom. That was the year that my family life was

really the most chaotic. My older sister had moved out to live with her best friend. My mother was

doing her best to manage my stepfather who had schizoaffective disorder and without any real

financial resources to speak up. Every single day, I would walk into that classroom, sit down at my desk, and quietly cry.

And if it wasn't enough, there was this classmate, a true real-life Regina George,

before any of us knew what that meant, who made sure things were a little worse whenever possible.

Helena Graham was a black woman who stood almost five feet tall and chomped on nicotine

gum every single hour of the school day. And one afternoon, when every other kid had filed out

of class, she pulled me aside. And what she said was not particularly warm or gentle. She just looked at me and she said,

you have to stop crying. It asked to stop. It's too much. And I did. I never let anybody see me cry again.

And she wasn't being cruel. She was giving me the most honest, most useful gift that any adult had ever handed me. The truth.

There is nothing you can do to fix your family. The only thing you can control is yourself.

...