Tyesa Walton remembers her senior prom at Dunbar Vocational Career Academy in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood.

She wore a black and gold gown that she bought with savings from her McDonald’s gig. Her aunt paid to have her hair done, and her uncle served as chauffeur.

“He put on a top hat and drove us in a Lincoln Continental,” Walton said.

Her date was the co-captain of the basketball team. He accented his tux with a bracelet he borrowed from his boss at a restaurant on 87th and Stony Island.

“We had the most amazing time,” Walton said.

That was 40 years ago, and now Walton — known lovingly as Ms. Tee Tee — is back at her alma mater teaching special ed.

The path wasn’t easy.

Walton left Chicago two decades ago to teach in Los Angeles and Dubai after a tragic event left her unmoored. She was pregnant with a baby girl when she went into early labor, and by the time she got to the hospital she was hemorrhaging dangerous amounts of blood. Doctors had to use a defibrillator to keep her alive.

Her daughter, Chloe Jade, died in the delivery room.

“They brought me her little footprints, but she didn’t make it,” Walton said. “I keep her memory with a smile, but in the back of my mind I always wonder about her. Who she’d be. What she’d be doing.”

Different cities,........

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