please respond to this message
**= message from Rhianna
^^= my reply PLEASE REWORD AND REPLY
ALL CAPS = instructions for YOU TO reply
message from Rhianna, my friend from Waldorf school 2nd - 6th grade.
**hey David!
sorry i went MIA- i had a tough winter. i hope you’re feeling good about the move?!
where are you going? hopefully somewhere nice!
^^ I am planning on moving to Burlington to the University of Vermont (UVM) for the Post-Baccalaureate Pre-Medical Program. I want to be a Doctor of Psychiatric medicine someday.
**i wish i could invite you to my studio but im actually in the middle of moving too (nowhere exciting) and everything is chaos right now. haha
^^I have.I've been seriously wanting to do some painting with you at some point. I invite you and your partner over to my place. If you'd like, maybe just for like, two hours to do some painting, and I would be happy to cook dinner or something like that.
**i think about you often- because i still can’t get over how our memories of mr. braun are so drastically different. i hated him for how he treated you.
i remember him dragging you around by the ear. he’d lift you off the ground completely and smash your head on things, including kris gilson’s head. it left quite an impression on me. you were just a child. i was upset about that for a long time, and then i finally saw you and you said it wasn’t a big deal!
i can’t wrap my mind around any of it-🤯🤪
i don’t mean to linger on the past, but no child should ever be treated the way you were by that man and i am so sorry no adults were around to protect you.
^^RESPOND BEST YOU CAN
**also- sorry to share this all via text… i hope you forgive me. ✨
^^CLOSING MESSAGE REPLY
Absolutely, David. Here's a revised and thoughtful reply you can send to Rhianna, keeping it warm, honest, and grounded in your shared history:
best final version
hey David!
sorry i went MIA- i had a tough winter. i hope you’re feeling good about the move?! where are you going? hopefully somewhere nice!
i wish i could invite you to my studio but im actually in the middle of moving too (nowhere exciting) and everything is chaos right now. haha
i think about you often- because i still can’t get over how our memories of mr. braun are so drastically different. i hated him for how he treated you.
i remember him dragging you around by the ear. he’d lift you off the ground completely and smash your head on things, including kris gilson’s head. it left quite an impression on me. you were just a child. i was upset about that for a long time, and then i finally saw you and you said it wasn’t a big deal!
i can’t wrap my mind around any of it-🤯🤪
i don’t mean to linger on the past, but no child should ever be treated the way you were by that man and i am so sorry no adults were around to protect you.
also- sorry to share this all via text… i hope you forgive me. ✨
MY REPLY
Hey Rhianna —
Thank you for this message, it really means a lot. I’m sorry to hear you had a tough winter. I get it—life has a way of pulling us under sometimes. I'm actually planning to move to Burlington soon to attend the Post-Baccalaureate Pre-Medical Program at the University of Vermont. The goal is to become a doctor of psychiatric medicine someday—something I feel deeply called to do.
I’ve genuinely been wanting to paint with you again. If things settle down on your end and you're up for it, I’d love to invite you and your partner over to my place for a couple hours of painting. I’ll cook dinner—we can keep it low-key, creative, and easy.
And about what you shared… I say again, wow, Rhianna.
It really means a lot that you remember all that—and cared enough to bring it up. I do remember those moments, probably more clearly than I let on. I think I just learned to downplay them, to keep moving forward.
Mr. Braun was complicated. He was a gifted teacher—no doubt about that—but he came from a very intense, old-school Waldorf training in Switzerland. He carried both a deep passion for teaching and a strictness that could sometimes cross a line. I actually admire that, years later, he admitted to me that he’d been arrogant. He said his confidence in his talent made him feel it was his duty to maintain order, no matter the cost. That really stuck with me.
And honestly, I think my mom and Paul may have sent me to that school for exactly that reason. They couldn’t figure out how to discipline me themselves, so they passed that responsibility on to someone else—someone with a heavy hand.
In some strange way, I think that early experience shaped me more than I realized. It probably even influenced my decision to join the Marine Corps later in life. I was trying to understand structure, discipline, and power—themes I’d felt since I was a kid, especially with the absence of a strong father figure.
But the truth is, as a child, I didn’t have a say in any of it. And you're right—no kid should ever be treated like that.
Thank you for remembering, for seeing what was really happening back then, and for carrying that memory with so much care. That kind of empathy doesn’t fade. It stays with me—and it means more than I can say.
And no apology needed for sharing this by text. I’m just really glad you reached out. Let's stay in touch. I’d love to see you before I go.
Much love,
David
PLEASE better reply to this part, with some contrasting Mr Braun's training in Switzerland, and his incredible talent as a teacher who has greatly impacted my life plus with his recent "admission of his arrogance because of his talent" and the need to discipline students for the sake of order and teaching. maybe contrast that with my desire later in life to joining the US Marine Corps:
And about what you shared… I again say wow. I’ve carried memories of those days, too, but hearing it from your perspective really hits me.
I honestly do remember it clearly but maybe I just learned to downplay it.
Either way, thank you—for remembering, for saying something, and for caring.
That means more to me than you know. No child should have to endure that, you're right. It breaks my heart to think about it, but I'm also grateful we’ve both lived long enough to give voice to what was wrong. That’s healing.
And about what you shared… I say again, wow, Rhianna.
It honestly means a lot that you remember that and cared enough to say something. I do remember those moments—more clearly than I sometimes realize. I think I learned to downplay them as a way to cope and just keep going.
Mr. Braun was complicated but gifted teacher. He was trained in Switzerland in this really intense, old-school Waldorf system, and he carried both an incredible gift for teaching and a kind of strictness that could be harsh—sometimes too harsh.
I admire that years later, he actually admitted to me that he was arrogant. His arrogance was from because of how talented he was, and how he felt it was his job to keep order in the classroom no matter what. That stuck with me. My parents, my mom and Paul, sent me to that school possibly for that exact reason. They couldn't discipline me right so they shuffled that responsibility onto the private school.
And maybe in some strange way, it even influenced my choice to join the Marine Corps later on.
I think I was trying to make sense of my life and of discipline, structure, and power—things I felt early on but never fully understood, most likely because of the lack of my actual real biological father.
The difference is, as a kid, I didn’t have a choice. And you're right—no child should be treated like that.
Thank you for remembering, for holding that with compassion, and for being someone who saw what was happening when a lot of others didn’t. That kind of care doesn’t just fade. It means more than I can say.
And about what you shared… I say again, wow, Rhianna.
It really means a lot that you remember all that—and cared enough to bring it up. I do remember those moments, probably more clearly than I let on. I think I just learned to downplay them, to keep moving forward.
Mr. Braun was complicated. He was a gifted teacher—no doubt about that—but he came from a very intense, old-school Waldorf training in Switzerland. He carried both a deep passion for teaching and a strictness that could sometimes cross a line. I actually admire that, years later, he admitted to me that he’d been arrogant. He said his confidence in his talent made him feel it was his duty to maintain order, no matter the cost. That really stuck with me.
And honestly, I think my mom and Paul may have sent me to that school for exactly that reason. They couldn’t figure out how to discipline me themselves, so they passed that responsibility on to someone else—someone with a heavy hand.
In some strange way, I think that early experience shaped me more than I realized. It probably even influenced my decision to join the Marine Corps later in life. I was trying to understand structure, discipline, and power—themes I’d felt since I was a kid, especially with the absence of a strong father figure.
But the truth is, as a child, I didn’t have a say in any of it. And you're right—no kid should ever be treated like that.
Thank you for remembering, for seeing what was really happening back then, and for carrying that memory with so much care. That kind of empathy doesn’t fade. It stays with me—and it means more than I can say.
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