I love my job...

Work began the same as always yesterday. At 12:30 the kids come in from lunch recess and we do handwriting. I generally sit at the back table with Loki, a thin, athletic blonde boy with a severe attention deficit disorder, and Zach, a much shorter and thinner boy, who sports a retro mullet and suffers from dyslexia. We work together on handwriting for at least 1 hour every day at the back table. They just so happen to be best friends. When I give one of them laps, the other begs to have the same number, or else it's just "not fair." Same as always, Loki and Zach stayed back to continue handwriting while the rest of the class went to the computer lab for typing class. I moved to the desk to enter grades into the computer when Loki asked me if I would come back next year. "Of course," I said without hesitation. "Good." It was silent for a while. Then Zach asked, "Teacher Kristina, will you be here the next year after that?" "Maybe. But you will be moving up to 5th grade by then," I said with optimism. After another pause Zach said, "Will you be here when I'm in 8th grade? I'll need your help with handwriting." "No, you won't need me anymore." Then Loki said, "Teacher, I'm always going to need you. You've loved me more than any teacher. And you taught me cursive."