I've wondered, often, if I'm making any difference here. Days, weeks, go by, with me, struggling to make a connection-a spark between the fire in me and that in another. Sometimes it seems like sparks are flying from me with no one to receive them, and I feel like my flame might die. After all, fires need to be fed.

But then there are days when winds blow and sparks fly from me and around me, bouncing off each other and gaining energy.

The wind blew hard at Amakusa High School today, my last day. The fire in me danced and jumped and reached out to touch, as the winds of people's thanks blew today.

The day started with a speech given by me to all my students and colleagues. There were over a thousand of them, all of them faces I knew. They sat on the gym floor in their picket fence rows and listened with careful ears. They listened beyond the forms of either language, to the content, and they let it touch them. They said to me later, "Kandou shimashita," or, "my heart moved." After my speech, as I stood on the stage alone, some of them played my country's national anthem. I sang the words (that I could remember) with tears in my eyes, feeling every note like a word of thanks; the significance of the moment, weighing heavier on me as they played on-a song that was not their own, but one they'd learned for me and were playing with more freedom and bravery and passion than I've heard. I wiped my wet face and saw in the mass of rows, my students doing the same.

Throughout the day, students came to me with gifts-cards and flowers and little presents-always asking me not to forget them. (How could I?) And everyone greeted me in the hall with a smile and a loud, "Goodbye, Sarah!" and I felt the winds blow.

But the moments when the fire in me stood the strongest were in the silences between the words spoken. Often when students or teachers first came to me, we stood in awkward silence, exchanging nervous giggles or glances as the seconds passed. But knowing they had something they wanted to say, I waited. And as I waited, I watched them, their faces transforming in silent concentration, as they searched for words to express the movements of their hearts. And I was so happy, because I knew that this was communication. The silences were always eventually interrupted by words-slow, broken phrases of thanks for things I did or said that I can't remember. And the sparks flew as our flames leaped up and licked each other.

So I will leave this community with many memories and much sadness, but most of all with a wild fire, stalked with the knowledge that I have made a difference here and ready to make some more.