After twenty-three years of being a Teaching Artist, there is one residency that has continually haunted the author. It was an experience that reinforced the value of her work, validated the power of the arts in the classroom, and provoked deep personal reflection. The residency took place in 1999 at Park Street Elementary in a large Southern city. Park Street is a diverse school serving both middle-class and poverty-level students. There are many at-risk students and many students with emotional and social issues. There are students at Park Street who have seen and experienced things no one, especially not children, should have to endure. In this article, the author shares how her distillation of the theme of the book, "The Great Kapok Tree," by Lynne Cherry, about a very precious thing that is being destroyed made her realize that the precious thing that really is being destroyed is the innocence of children.