Most of us have a special teacher, school counselor or college professor who somehow changed our life for the better. We remember these folks fondly, yet we rarely follow up on the long overdue \u201cThank you,\u201d which they so heartily deserve. Maybe that is why I\u2019m such a sucker for those Hallmark commercials portraying a deserving mentor finally receiving a card which expresses exactly what I\u2019ve never said.<\/p>\n
For example, my favorite spot features a retiring professor who is busy clearing his office of the evidence of his decades spent teaching. While he is rummaging through papers and boxing up books, a former student who is now a middle-aged woman walks in and offers him a greeting card. The curmudgeonly old professor momentarily stops his tasks and opens the card. He can’t find his glasses, so the student reads the message of gratitude the card expresses, then anxiously awaits his reaction. After all, when someone has been a supportive teacher, they forever hold this place of respect in our hearts.<\/p>\n
Over a decade ago, I think it might have been this classic commercial that originally provided the catalyst for me to visit one of my favorite instructors. I had heard through the college grapevine that \u201cDoc\u201d was failing physically and mentally, and that he had been placed in a nursing facility. I was saddened by this news, because I had not only been his student, but I had once worked for this brilliant man.<\/p>\n
As a student employee, Doc\u2019s inability to understand that not everyone was as bright as him had been a bit of a challenge for me in the beginning. To explain, one day as a senior business major, he innocently asked if I would be able to oversee his economics class the following afternoon. Being enrolled in the course myself, I knew that particular day\u2019s schedule was to be an explanation of the computation of the Gross National Product. Therefore, I frantically explained to Doc that I could answer his phones and grade his tests, but I was presently unable to compute the GNP.<\/p>\n
It was also during this senior year of college in the early eighties that I was blessed to serve a year\u2019s internship at my local newspaper, The Lima News, under the direction of then city editor, Mike Lackey. Under this award-winning journalist\u2019s watchful eye, I learned to report about everything from election night results to a Toledo businessman\u2019s ordeal of being held captive by Venezuelan terrorists.<\/p>\n
Apparently, my love for journalism and the English language didn\u2019t escape Doc\u2019s watchful eye. One day, as graduation loomed on the horizon, I asked him what he thought I should do with my life. Barely looking up from the stacks of books and endless papers that covered his office desk, he told me that I should write.<\/p>\n
This advice left me somewhat bewildered, because I had studied diligently to finish my business degree. Therefore, I assumed my professor would say I was destined to be an international business diva. Besides, I was the single mom of a toddler, and needed more financial security than an uncertain career in journalism could provide. As a result, I didn\u2019t heed his wise counsel for many years.<\/p>\n
I remembered all of this the evening when I went to visit Doc at the nursing home.
\nOn that particular night, Doc\u2019s eyes investigated my once familiar face searching for recognition. Then he reached for my hand, and asked, \u201cWhat do you do?\u201d
\n\u201cI\u2019m a writer,\u201d I said explaining that he was once my professor and had told me to write. Doc, who was in his eighties by then, was confined to a wheelchair. His silver-hair fell to one side as he struggled to hold his head upright. Still there was that kind smile that I had grown so fond of long ago.<\/p>\n
For a moment, Doc looked deeply concerned about my career choice then he hesitatingly asked how it turned out. I leaned down and assured him that it turned out OK. \u201cI\u2019ve written a couple books,\u201d I said. Instantly, a smile of satisfaction slowly formed on his lips. Doc is gone now, but even near the end, he was ever the consummate professor who wanted his students to do well. Sadly, I didn\u2019t have a Hallmark card to pull out of my purse to say \u201cThanks.\u201d Instead I just smiled back and squeezed his wrinkled hand.<\/p>\n
Christina Ryan Claypool is a freelance journalist and inspirational speaker. Contact her through her Website at www.christinaryanclaypool.com <\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Most of us have a special teacher, school counselor or college professor who somehow changed our life for the better. We remember these folks fondly, yet we rarely follow up on the long overdue \u201cThank you,\u201d which they so heartily … Continue reading