Goodbye to The Finest Man I’ve Ever Known I’ve held you close, carefully and lovingly keeping you tucked away inside this wounded soul of mine. Though many years have passed, you and your spirit have continued to course through my veins like blood, never water. I’d like to think that you’re here, standing behind me right now, reading every word as I pour my love for you onto this page and if you are, I want you to know that I will always love, respect and cherish you. You didn’t just change my life. You did something far, far more meaningful. You healed my wounds, you lit the fire in my soul and you tenderly led me down a brighter path. I would never have found myself or my way without you. I was a discarded, abused and neglected thirteen year old child the day that you noticed me curled in a fetal position on the sofa at school. Your eyes were filled with delight as you worked your way from student to student, your body animated as you explained concepts with your hands before finally stopping to speak to me. When you realized that I couldn’t make eye contact with you, your delight drained away, becoming gentleness and compassion – things I had not seen before. I would soon discover that I had found a friend, an advisor, a mentor and the strongest advocate that I would ever encounter in my life. I would grow to love you in the deepest and most innocent of ways and in turn, you would reach for my potential and dangle it in front of me, prodding me along in a deliberate and loving attempt to make me realize that I was valuable. You encouraged me as I plinked away on a typewriter in your classroom, producing poetry pulled from the terrors and heartaches hidden deep within my heart. You held the pages, smiling broadly, telling me that I was a natural. A writer! I didn’t believe you then but you weren’t to be discouraged. You in your plaid 1970’s polyester pants, knitted multicolor vest and glasses. You, the one with the warm smile. I felt a feeling that I had never felt before. It was love. The kind of love that a child feels for a parent or a relative. For the first time in my life, I felt loved and what a beautiful, precious and priceless feeling it was for me! I couldn’t recall ever, in my entire life, feeling loved by anyone. Your love wasn’t just words overshadowed by intimidation, violence or abandonment. It was sincere and it was real. And it became a bright, bright force in my otherwise dark, lonely and unhappy life. My grades improved and you were so proud of me. You thought, in your naivety, that certainly THIS would make my father take notice. THIS, you thought, would bring him around. Your face was bright with enthusiasm that day as you pushed the telephone receiver into my hand. “Call him, JoAnn! Ask him to come to parent/ teacher conferences and I’ll tell him how well you’re doing!” So, reluctantly and knowing full well what the outcome would be, I dialed the phone, and mustering what courage I could find, I asked him to come. You watched as emptiness returned to my face. My voice, now flat with disappointment, revealed what his answer had been. “No, he said, I believe in parents doing the parenting and teachers doing the teaching.” This from a man, a father, who I hadn’t seen or heard from at all in more than six months. I suppose you must have thought that if he couldn’t bother, you certainly would. And you did. You walked me through the most difficult and important years of my childhood, tenderly catching me each time that I stumbled. All the while that you were working on me, I was keeping secrets. I never told you just how empty and devoid of love my life at home really was. When I had my first female problem, you were as observant as any parent could be, noticing and helping me through the embarrassment, finally sending your wife to take me to the doctor. I had not received any sort of parenting at all since I was ten years old or so, despite living with one parent while the other lived just miles away. My childhood was slipping by as other kids in my neighborhood had fun, went to movies and amusement parks, attended birthday parties and other activities but I was the kid who never had two nickels to rub together and on those occasions when a neighborhood parent felt sorry for me and did invite me to go along, I always just stood in the background watching the other kids have the kind of fun that I desperately wished I could have but couldn’t afford. Finally, because I was embarrassed, I isolated myself and refused any invitations that did come. Fun, by any definition, was absent from my childhood but you saw to it that I laughed. Strange men came and went in our home as I became more and more inconvenient. I was told that I was eating too much, so demands were made that I not touch most of the food in the house. I came to school most days having had little more than juice in the morning and in the evening there was no meal or dinner with a parent and never any conversation at all. I was left to pick at whatever I was allowed to eat. I was alone from the time that school let out until the early hours of the morning all week and on weekend nights my parent spent her time at a bar. So when I say that you were the only one who put the effort into loving and caring for me, I am not exaggerating in any way. I was very, very alone. The days moved along and all the while you continued to work on me. Soon, I was making eye contact with you as we sat across from each other talking. I was introverted and completely devoid of self-confidence, so you set about helping me with that. How clever you were, I now realize, to have used my reading ability to drive me outside of my shell. You called on me frequently to read passages from books to the rest of the students in the classroom. I was fluid and didn’t miss a beat. I was good at that and I knew it. This, I could be proud of, and I was. You were brilliant in the simplicity of your plan, and over the course of many, many months, you would find other ways to tease me further outside of the safety of my shell. I loved you and worried about what I would do without you around during summer break. I knew my world would become dark again but I couldn’t express my feelings so I held my fears inside. Three months feels like forever to a child who is alone. The last day of school came and you called me to your desk, pointed to the hamster in its cage and said, “JoAnn, I’ve got a problem here. I forgot to arrange for a student to take the hamster home for summer break. Will you take care of him for me?” I remember well what my reaction was that day. Would I take the hamster home and take care of it for you, the greatest man I had ever known? YES! Wow! You placed the hamster cage into my arms, a move that would assure me companionship for the summer while also providing me with a task that would make me feel valued and still connected to my relationship with you. The first day of school each year was thrilling for me because I looked forward to seeing you. You continued to encourage and nurture me and on most days you drove me home from school. I know that there were hundreds and hundreds of evenings when you arrived home late because you sat in your car in front of my house and talked to me. These were snippets of time that still mean the world to me. I suppose you knew that. You encouraged me to play volleyball and other games, and through those activities, I began to experience the joy of simply having fun. I can still see you, your arms waving wildly in the air as you skipped across the tops of the desks in your classroom while exclaiming, “I am Super Teacher!” Indeed, you were! You made me laugh. Really laugh. You asked me years later why it was that I never called you by name and in fact, why I had never called you anything at all? I never called you anything because I loved you desperately but I believed I was inconvenient and that if I let my feelings show or allowed myself to appear to be too close or too familiar, I would scare you away. I never called you anything at all because I didn’t want to lose you. I think I was fifteen years old when you came to me and said that we needed to have a serious discussion. I was stunned when you informed me that you and your wife had decided that if I would like you both to adopt me, you would hire a lawyer and get things started. This was the happiest yet saddest day of my life. I longed to be your daughter but I loved you dearly and I knew that a legal battle between a teacher and her parents, even neglectful, abusive parents like mine, would kill your career. I said no, all the while wishing that I could have said yes. There hasn’t been a day in my life since then that I haven’t wished I could have said yes. You had already been a kind, loving father to me and the bond that I feel for you, even these decades later, is still the strongest I have ever known. Your curiosity and love of learning was contagious. I’ll never forget your excitement that day so many years ago when you brought your first Apple computer to school. You were on fire as you explained its features and the exciting changes that computers would bring to our lives. Oh how those few years with you changed my life, opened my mind, made me realize my own value, and made it possible for me to see my potential! My world feels empty without you somewhere out there in it. I expected and wanted you to live forever but you left while you were still relatively young. You were a bright, bright light in a very dark and lonely world. I’m a writer because you helped me to believe that I can. I build computers because you lit the fire of curiosity within me. I am a good person because you demonstrated honor and integrity. I overcame because you lifted me and helped me get through the fire. I never, ever give up because you never gave up on me. I am funny because you taught me to laugh! I am tender because you showed me that it’s harmful to be too strong. I am patriotic because you were a proud Vietnam veteran and a Navy Captain. I am a strong woman because you, a man, taught me that women are equal to men in all aspects of life and work. And I am compassionate because you poured your compassion over me. You, warm, loving, intelligent, smiling, goofy, often hilarious, imperfect, honest and glorious in your capacity to be human – you - the principled, ever-honorable man who almost was my father. I will always, always love you, John. You were the finest man I have ever known and I owe my outcome, my sense of worth, and my capacity for happiness today solely to you. Fly with the angels, You now have your wings. I’ll keep you here with me safely, Tucked away in my dreams.
Posted on: Fri, 12 Jul 2013 07:03:01 +0000