Last weekend, I attended a memorial service for my friend Don. He was a writing teacher in my department, someone who taught me so much about teaching, and writing, and students, and living. On the day I heard that he died, I wrote on Facebook that my favorite memory of him is when I went to his house for a meeting about composition papers that had been submitted for an award--his award that he established to honor students for their writing achievements in their first year of college. I almost said I couldn't go to the meeting, because my babysitting plan fell through at the last minute, and Shay--who was just 18 months--had nowhere to go. But Don told me to just bring him along, so I did. And he got out this busy box, a box with all sorts of locks and latches and secret hiding places--that he had made for his own now-grown kids--for Shay to play with. Shay loved it, and he loved Don, and he wanted Don to play with it with him. So Don got down on the floor, and played with Shay, and talked to us about the essays. He taught me about writing that day, and about teaching, and about parenting, and about personhood.
At the memorial, he was remembered by all sorts of people from all his walks of life, and they all remembered the same Don: the same kind, generous person who made each person he encountered feel listened to, valued, taught, and inspired. One of those people brought up those last lines in Our Town, when Emily asks the Stage Manager if anyone ever realizes, ever appreciates life. "Saints and poets do maybe," says the Stage Manager--and Don, he suggested.
I've been thinking about those lines all week. I've been thinking about the indoor theater at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, where I first saw that play performed when I was 13. I can still feel the chills, the surprising chills I felt, so surprising because I didn't expect to be so taken in by a play with so little "production." I've been thinking about Don, and how he showed me how to appreciate the fact that my motherhood was overlapping with my career and not feel embarrassed by that--but just to get down on the floor, play, and also think about writing.
Do we ever realize?
Today, the first day of February, was an unusually warm day. We had chocolate ice cream with rainbow sprinkles in the sun this afternoon, and I realized. And I thought of my friend.
I am writing this to remind myself to remember to realize more often. To realize even without chocolate ice cream with rainbow sprinkles.
