Volunteers often receive more than they give, as this story shows. Volunteering is a mitzvah

William waits for me in front of Room 210, hands holding something behind his back, head tilted away as I approach. "I don’t feel like reading today," he announces, avoiding eye contact. He is almost 10, handsome and polite, with dark brown eyes as big as pennies. And he’s on to me. As the year has passed, he’s figured out that I’m a pushover. 

"How about one book?" I suggest, "in our favorite spot? Then we can play your game." Negotiations complete, he pulls the board game front and center, and we walk down five steps to a white window seat to begin reading Frog and Toad Together. Suddenly, he stops. 

"Too many pages. I can’t read that many pages." 

"How about if you read one, then I read one. I’ll start." 

"No," says William. "I’ll start." 

And so it goes. Once a week for one hour, going on three years, William and I meet with the assigned task of improving his literacy. Mostly we goof around. On his high-energy days, we whip through Easy Readers. I celebrate every new word he masters with a cheerleader-like frenzy. "Wonderful! Great! You are a reader, William!" He fires back with enthusiasm of his own: "How many books can we read today? Ten? Twelve? Let’s read eighteen!" 

Sometimes we just play games — Trouble or Mancala. He plays to win, and does. Sometimes, we sneak into the school cafeteria, scouring it for a Popsicle or bag of salty chips. Other days are a chore. He’s distracted, annoyed even, watching his buddies swat each other’s heads as they march down the hall to the Media Center while he’s stuck with me. 

"William," I tease,"Where are you?" 

On those days, I feel defeated. 

But I’m never sorry I come. Once William came to school with a family crisis embedded in his face. As we sat together on the white bench, he shed his bravado and tucked wet eyes into my shoulder and I would have held him there forever. But he is, after all, nine years old. The storm passed quickly. He sat up, wiped his eyes and asked,"Can we play Trouble?" 

A teacher I know stopped me in the hall one day to ask if I would be returning the following year.Of course, I told her. "Well, good," she said. "William needs you." I wanted to correct her: Actually, I need William. 

I am 43 years old, with a full-time job I like and three neat kids who, so far, still like me. But sometimes I catch myself letting work problems distract me from them at home,when I open the mail instead of focusing on a detail of their day, or rush through their bedtime rituals so I can crawl into bed with a book. 

Sixteen years into marriage, I’m a decent spouse. But the most romantic getaway we have these days is to the wholesale club to buy in bulk. At work, where I manage nine creative people, most days go well. But last week I missed a deadline and screwed up an administrative detail and got some facts wrong in a meeting and wondered why they ever hired me. 

I have friends I adore who complete my world. But we can never seem to find time for lunch anymore, and one is battling depression and my words, meant to comfort, come out trite and patronizing. "Hang in there," I tell her. "It will get better." Dear God. 

My world is safe and solid and good, except when the wheels come off unexpectedly and I feel as though I will drown in self-doubt — when I say something stupid, or feel envy, or bark at my kids because I’m tired, or forget to call my mother, or call my mother and feel ten years old again, or go to work with graham crackers ground into my shoulder and my sweater buttoned wrong. 

But I have one hour. 

One hour a week when I have no self-doubt. When I walk down a noisy elementary school hallway covered with  children’s art and my respite awaits me. 

"When will you come back?" William asks. 

"Next Wednesday, silly. I always come on Wednesday."  

"I wish you could come on Mondays instead," he says. "Then I wouldn’t have to wait so long for you." 

One hour a week I am granted the greatest reward possible: The comfort of knowing that I am absolutely in the right place, doing the right thing. 

My life will catch up to me soon enough. But for the moment, it will just have to wait. 

Gail Rosenblum is a writer and editor living in Minneapolis. She has three children, ages 13, 11, and 4. This article first appeared in the inaugural issue of Twin Cities Jewish Life — a joint publication of the Minneapolis Jewish Federation and the Saint Paul United Jewish Fund and Council.

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