Opinion/Brown: Irene Santos was talented, tough, fair. Her former students are her legacy

It had to be at least 20 years ago that I stood in our school library as part of a circle of faculty colleagues to pray for Irene Santos.

It was a prayer without words, something I had tried years before at a different school. A faculty child was in Boston Children's Hospital with a cancer that was certain to cost her her leg and very likely, her life. In a school assembly, everyone held hands and tried to visualize this little blonde girl with rumply hair turning transparent, clear as glass. On one leg, we noted a darkened cloud and imagined it gone. In the end, she did lose her leg — but not her life — and eventually she became a champion skier.

Now, we were trying the same prayer for Irene. Irene had been at Cape Cod Academy for a long time, teaching physical education, life skills and coaching basketball. Irene wasn't the soft cuddly type. She didn't suffer fools gladly; she straightened them out.

It was breast cancer that was after Irene. We stood in our little circle and imagined her clear as glass, clear clean through. Turned out, Irene was just too tough. The cancer, having met its match, beat a retreat.

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One winter, she coached the boys’ varsity basketball team. I remember one kid who was in danger of flunking out. He was a good athlete, but Irene told him he'd be sitting on the bench if he didn't get his grades straightened out. She would have too, and he knew it — so all during basketball season, his academic improvements were little short of miraculous. He played ball, and then the basketball season ended. Irene lost the leverage she’d had during the winter and the boy's grades plunged again. He’d done it for Coach, not for himself.

I have a daughter who’s a social worker in schools. But back in the day, she was this sweet-tempered, gentle soul on Irene Santos’ girls’ basketball team. It happens in basketball: two players from opposing teams both have their hands on the ball, trying to wrestle it free. Julie was just too nice. She didn't have it in her to just yank the ball away from another human being like that. It was Irene who taught my daughter that there are moments in life when you just have to hang on tight and pull as hard as you can. And that's OK. You have as much right to the ball as anyone.

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Decades later, my daughter has learned how to be soft as a dove and hard as a brick. The kids get the dove. Anyone who hurts them gets the brick. I think it's Irene who taught her that — and in my daughter's 25 years of social service, hundreds of children's lives have been lifted somehow. I think the world is a better place because she's in it. Whenever that's true about a person, then we look to the teachers who, back in their formative years, pointed them in the right direction.

It was during one of my daughter’s basketball games that one of her teammates got involved in one of those one-on-one contests to see who could wrestle the ball away. Somehow in the midst of contesting for the ball, a hand slipped free, swung through space and slapped the other girl hard across the cheek. Suddenly there was silence and it seemed like nobody moved. Shocked at what had happened, she reached out and, with infinite tenderness, cupped the other girl's face in her hand and told her she was sorry. I remember it all 30 years later as one of those occasions when human decency appeared suddenly and unexpectedly — almost goddess-like — in the flow of events. Irene was her coach too.

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If you wanted to ask who prepared Irene to teach life skills, I suspect it was life that prepared her. And motherhood. Irene raised two solid sons with the same mixture of no-nonsense and Gibraltar love. No questions were out of bounds. No one dared snigger.

Well, cancer was patient, but it never stopped stalking Irene or waiting, like the malevolent coward it is, for her to get older and finally weaker. It was quite a fight, but finally, Irene met her match and died a few weeks ago.

I'm tempted to say they don't make them like they used to, but I know better. People are being made better all the time. That's what good teachers do.

Goodnight Irene, good night, good night. Hundreds of boys and girls have stood up straighter, fought harder, and done better because of a teacher like you.

May God sing thee to thy rest.

Lawrence Brown is a columnist for the Cape Cod Times. Email him at column response@gmail.com.

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This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Lawrence Brown: Losing Irene Santos a talented but tough teacher