As a young child taken from her home in Puerto Rico, thrust into a foreign culture and an abusive home life, Sarai Rivera-Huertas found solace in the classroom with a teacher who made a profound impact on her.
Twenty-six years later — after decades of searching and praying they would reunite — Rivera-Huertas, 38, and her seventh grade teacher, Michele Emery, 54, reconnected in an unexpected twist of events.
Rivera-Huertas said it was a Christmas miracle and an answer to her prayers.
“She made a difference in my life. She influenced me in such a way. I wanted to find her because I wanted to let her know how much she did for me without her even knowing. I wanted to let her know what I thought of her and how I looked forward to school just to be in her classroom,” Rivera-Huertas said recently from the couch in her Egg Harbor City home.
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In 1993, at the age of 9, Rivera-Huertas and her sister were moved to a home in the housing projects of Millville.
“It was scary,” she recalled, not knowing English and not fitting in with other students. “My hair was messy, my glasses were squared and all kinds of colors. I didn’t have a mother there with me, so it was pretty much me being on my own. I felt alone, I isolated myself, it was pretty bad.”
Rivera-Huertas said Emery — who then, just starting out in her career, went by a different last name — made all the difference as her seventh grade English as a Second Language teacher at the Rieck Avenue School in Millville.
“I knew that she cared for me,” Rivera-Huertas said. “I felt protected there, I felt supported and I felt like I belonged.”
Just when she was about to transition into high school, the girls were put into the foster care system. They ended up with a family in Egg Harbor City.
Rivera-Huertas graduated from Absegami High School in 1999 and went on to Atlantic Cape Community College, then received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Now, she is a social worker.
“I always thought about her after being at Absegami,” Rivera-Huertas said.
She began actively searching for her former teacher while she was in college, with no luck. Then, she said she turned to her Christian faith and began to pray.
“When you just kind of let go, you still have that energy and then things happen,” Rivera-Huertas said. “I believe in prayer, and I believe in miracles.”
On Dec. 4, Rivera-Huertas was picking up her daughter from day care when the caregiver pulled her aside to tell her a story of a former student she ran into while shopping. Rivera-Huertas in turn shared the story of her former teacher with whom she was hoping to reconnect.
“I looked at her and said, ‘I’ve been praying, and I believe the right time will come when God is literally just going to put her right in front of me,’” Rivera-Huertas said.
The following day, Rivera-Huertas attended a holiday party at work and sat with a group of strangers who told her a woman named Michele would be joining them as well.
When Michele returned to the table, Rivera-Huertas pretended to know her as a joke.
Racking her brain to figure out how the two knew each other, Michele soon realized she recognized the face.
“I looked at her and thought, ‘This is an old student of mine,’” said Emery. “I wanted to make sure that she knew that she didn’t have to tell me what her name was, and I said, ‘Yes, I remember you. I was your teacher.’”
Rivera-Huertas said she was shaking and crying as the two reconnected that afternoon.
“I think back, if you had not asked what my name was and said, ‘Hello, Michele,’ I would not have said to myself, ‘She knows me.’ And we may have never realized we were teacher and student together again,” Emery said.
She said knowing the impact she has made on Rivera-Huertas’ life was overwhelming and “every teacher’s dream come true.”
“When a student is coming from Puerto Rico from another country where they have to learn a new language, get used to an entirely new culture … they really do need a little more attention and a little extra care,” said Emery, who retired from teaching in 2017. “And my hope is all teachers when they receive a student from another country, if they would just take a moment to realize how overwhelming it can be and just to give that student a little extra time.”
Rivera-Huertas said she wants educators to know that even though on their worst day they may think they do not make a difference in their students’ lives, they should keep giving and being compassionate.
“Because they are actually making a difference. They’re leaving a stamp,” she said. “She left a stamp in my heart. I’m forever imprinted with her in my heart.”
