beccaaward The little girl who won this year was a perfect little girl. You could see it in her straight little back and the big, sober eyes in her serious face. You could know it without being told, even before you watched as she won all the other awards too, the ones for Best Student, and Hey Good Job on Your Awesome State Test Scores, and Most Likely to Make Her Teacher Really Love Her a Lot.

My father adored her. “There’s our winner,” he whispered to me with great pleasure as we sat up on the auditorium stage. I adored her too—nobody couldn’t—but it broke my heart. While most of the graduating fifth grade class at least had sort of goodish attendance to win them a “goodish attendance” medal (and several kids had perfect attendance all the way back to kindergarten), and our award winner clearly strived for perfection every day and in every way, there were only three or four kids who won nothing. They did not have even goodish attendance. They did not wear suits or pretty plum-colored dresses for their graduation. They looked grim, and embarrassed, and unhonored. They looked like they might go break something after. One of them really could have used a Jesse Steinberg Award.

We have been giving out the Jesse Steinberg Award to a graduating student almost since my mom began teaching at 61st Street School, and since she retired my dad and I have blown into South L.A. once a year to keep it going. It is named for my brother Jesse, who would be 41 next week, but he was schizophrenic and he hanged himself at home, from a rope swing in the back yard. That was 20 years ago. He was 21 years old.

I never talk about my brother when I give my little speech before we announce the award. I don’t say Here, child, have an award named for a dead person, my late brother, who is totally dead. I just talk about the traits one must have to win it: humor, tenacity (I explain what “tenacity” means), and bravery.

I called my mother after the wonderful ceremony (which included a husky, rosy-cheeked boy—one who’d had perfect attendance since kindergarten—giving a speech about his goals, most of which, adorably, seemed to be “perfect attendance in junior high, high school, and university”). Despite the sweetness of the morning, I was calling my mother to tattle.

“Mom,” I said, “I just really feel like the Jesse Steinberg Award is supposed to go to a kid who’s struggling, who’s not all awesome at school, for whom it would make a difference in the way he feels about school and the way he feels about himself.” (Yes, I do say “for whom” when I’m talking.)

My mother tut-tutted. “Are they giving it out to the best student again?” For years while she was there, teachers would nominate their best kids for the award, and she would have to gently wallop them, explaining over and over again that it should be for a funny kid, a hard kid, a kid for whom things were hard. It should be laurels for a kid who’s not usually honored, one who bounces off the walls a little maybe, who drives you a little crazy perhaps, who’s got a spark in him or her that could blossom if you let it. Jesse was so funny, completely ebullient, raising everyone’s spirits at all times, even when he was moody or mean. He had a cockeyed vision of the world, he was dyslexic, and if I remember right, he flunked first grade. He was always in trouble, he was always generous, and he was strong as a bull.

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