I've come by Dr. Aylesworth's office today to let him know I need to get out of class a few minutes early so I can corral a teacher who's been shirking (i.e., ignoring) his office hours of late.
Shortly after he approves my early exit, he gets this sort of pained look on his face.
Something's wrong.
"Something wrong?"
He parts his lips.
"Patrick, I just have a question, and there's only one way to ask it, and I just ... could you answer it in the spirit in which I'm asking it?"
...
I hope?
Kind of hard to answer that one. That's like, "OK, promise not to get mad?" Can't. Won't. Can promise to hear you out, though.
I shrug.
"Sure."
He pauses, like he's going to ask me if I was dressed by color-blind lemurs.
"Were you ... home-schooled?"
He braces for impact.
I smile.
For Marty, dead now three years and two months, almost to the day, and a gentle, kind soul to a student desperately trying to be worthy of a teacher.
"My parents encouraged me to ask a lot of questions," I say eagerly, with "here I thought you were going to ask me something personal" the understood undertone.
I hope the answer is worth the stress that question seems to have caused.
I don't tell him my parents have multiple degrees and they're not the only ones. One can be encouraged to ask questions by anyone from the illiterate to the Nobel laureate.
And the illiterate knows things the Nobel laureate cannot find in a book.
In his educational psychology class one day, we cover the difference between polysynthetic languages and nonpolysynthetic languages.
The old myth about the Inuits having however many words for snow is the example used in the book.
I smile. I know about polysynthetic languages. I've read this material before.
Dr. Aylesworth and some students get to talking about how a thing's presence or absence in a culture influences the words that culture develops.
True story (look at the semantics of the civil rights movement), but using the Inuits as an example of word frequency is horribly misled.
I smile and shake my head.
Marty walks over to the column of desks I'm sitting in and says, simply, "You're shaking your head, Patrick."
It's one of those question statements.
I smile again. "The Inuits' language is polysynthetic. The many words they have for snow are simply compound words with adjectives. Where we'd say 'very wet snow,' as three words, they'd combine the words for very, wet and snow, and it would be understood as one word, but it's not like you'd find it in an Inuit dictionary. They build words to suit their purposes."
Or something similarly erudite.
Most of the class is yet again annoyed with me for missing the point. (I'm not missing any point. I understood the concept before class. But there are plenty of languages you can use to explore what words peoples develop for what they encounter. Use the cow/beef example. It's spectacular.)
Later that day, I e-mail him just to make sure he understood -- sometimes I speak softly (without even carrying a big stick).
I didn't need your full name on the email ... or even your first name, to know who it was from. Toni mentioned your email alias name when we talked before, after you sent her the first note. (Yeah ... We do talk a lot ... But she wanted to check with you before sharing too much). But of course when I got to the Inuit reference ... Well, I'd have been
certain by then if I hadn't been already.
And no, I certainly didn't delete the previous email you sent me. In fact, I had some time yesterday afternoon and then again last night to spend at your website and read some of your postings there. I enjoyed reading them ... Your Qur'an paper (I learned a few things from that), Jerusalem, the poem from your dad, "The Project", the GLBT piece (really well done!) ... even your "half-assed attempt" <g> (not bad for a first attempt, if that's what it was). Thank you for sharing.
I hope we can find some time away from class and even away from the office to get together and talk ... maybe grab lunch sometime or coffee some afternoon. Again, thanks for sharing.
He signs it "Marty Aylesworth."
Dunno how many other students he did that with. Duncare. He's Marty -- privately, of course. Or with Toni (whom I diaried here). But he's Marty. That's pretty ridiculously cool.
Maybe me and Marty will go out some time and talk about my theory of how education would be done so much better if you had one teacher with the kids for multiple years.
Not a year later, I am back in school after learning the hard way that if you don't have proof you've had all your shots, the schools simply won't let you play with the other boys and girls (not to mention the Bunsen burners).
Because I am in the education department, the department I came in with a year ago, I apply for readmission there.
No biggie, right?
Good thing my GPA was at a 3, or I wouldn't have gotten back in.
So, with that out of the way, ... hey, I'm in the education department.
Wonder if Marty's here. Toni's previously said she's not at the school before late o'clock. And if she is here, she's in the bathroom or talking to Marty.
I sprint (safely) down to where his office once was, and lo and behold, it's still there.
Cool!
His door is open. I do one of those "Hey, I'm here" knocks.
He's there too.
(He is absolutely the kind of guy who would leave his office door open so any student who needed to see him and needed to collapse in a comfortable chair would have collapsed in the chair before he got there.)
I say hello. We shake hands and chat briefly. I leave his office.
I'm now living with the woman I intend to marry.
Because I am amazingly horrible at planning (cf. the date this diary is published), we're living 2.5 hours from school.
This actually saves me money, if not time, because the gas to get to and fro is less than the cheapest rent one could reasonably pay in the area for something to call a place to sleep.
I am at school, in my office -- the copy desk at the newspaper, which I also use for practically everything else that needs to be done.
Just winding things down after a day of classes and other such trivialities, and happen to check my e-mail.
I've set things up so anything that goes to my school e-mail address also goes to the e-mail address that doesn't have garbage features and storage space. So this way, I can stay in touch with whoever -- class listservs, school announcements -- without having to log in to two accounts.
Passing of Dr. Martin Aylesworth
It is with great sadness that we report the passing this afternoon of Dr. Martin S. "Marty" Aylesworth, Professor of Education in the School of Teacher Education and Leadership.
I collapse onto the floor, my hands catching the rough-but-who-gives-a-fuck-right-now cloth of my chair.
no
no
sobs erupt like violent almost-vomiting, dead-ending in the cushioning i'm breathing into like a gas mask for the -- me
screams pour like unheard promises from my throat to the chair, bypassing my mouth, which is currently buried where I was sitting
don't remember what it smelled like
only
no
No
He didn't tell me he was sick no no
NO
NO!
my eyes hurt now from the tears are busily saturating the cloth is rough and i don't care and
dear
god
let nobody come find me here
'are you ok'
'gee, yeah, i have a chair-crying fetish'
... best to be left alone.
no
he's not he didn't say they wouldn't just fucking send something out like this, dude. you didn't know. now you can go tell
shit she'll care about how i'm feeling but it's better to do it now than to have to tell her around people they'll all care and i don't want them to
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!
GODFUCKINGMOTHERFUCKINGFUCKINGNOFUCKNOMARTYFUCKNOFUCK!!!!!
the screams have dissolved into a light whimper
you wouldn't hear it unless i wanted you to
and i don't
rubbing my eyes will only make them redder
but mary's not an emotional person, so hopefully she'll just sit there and do the cursory 'i'm sorry' and i'll be out of there in a minute.
I walk over to the magazine office.
Mary is its lone occupant.
bless the heavens maybe i should start believing
"A former professor of mine just died, [so]"
She looks as uncomfortable as I feel, bless her heart.
"I'm sorry for your loss."
I nod.
thank you for not trying to make it better. you couldn't. nobody could. this is the part where you shut up, i get out what i need to get out and then i drive for forever and hope i won't crash.
"The memorial service is at 7, so I'm going to have to cut out of Sunday's meeting early."
She nods. I am so, so, so, so happy she doesn't want to talk about it. I don't like crying in front of people -- not because it's embarrassing but because I grieve violently (clenching every muscle I can control). It looks ... harmful.
Not doing it is much more harmful.
Apparently (I love how easy it is to search Gmail) I e-mailed Toni at 6:15 p.m. that Friday.
Maybe I stayed at the school to make sure I'd be able to see all the way home.
Whatever.
We connect. Only person I could connect with -- despite having had a chat acquaintance in an education class at that place (far more light-hearted story for a different day).
Now I drive home.
It better not rain inside or outside. I need to live through this drive and the next one so I can go stand witness to Marty was more than a teacher he was a human being who didn't sign his e-mails Dr. Aylesworth not that there's anything wrong with that he was just more personable than that and he remembered me a year later.
The wife -- only she isn't the wife yet, but it's funny how you have to remember back to when people didn't have those roles in your life -- also got the e-mail.
Didn't know Marty.
Gives me a gentle hug.
's about all I'm in the mood for. I don't want other people to comfort me. Doesn't matter who the other people is. (I grieve by writing. I'll -- you guessed it -- wait for the shock to subside.)
The meeting ends at 6:45.
Had it ended at 6:20, I would still have been looking at the clock every three nanoseconds or so.
The people at that meeting either do not notice the change in my demeanor or think it is just another way I am weird.
Whatever.
Nobody asks any questions when I dart out as politely as I can without talking to anyone.
I get to the funeral home and see about half students, half teachers.
I briefly shake hands with two professors I know -- one whose class I had, the other whose quiz bowl team I have captained.
And Toni holding court with a group of women approximately the size of the undergraduate population at Smith.
hello, smith. don't mind me, i just need to hug toni, and she is as much a sight for sore eyes as she is a ... everything else.
of course i remember you, patrick.
9direct quote, fuckers.0
I don't care if she doesn't know how entirely that meant everything to me.
I had been busily trying to find something to hold on to, with my memories of Marty reduced to e-mails and a caricature (it's funny, but ... I don't really feel like doing it here), and here Toni has let me know the day before that she remembers me and that Marty was happy and comforted in his last few days.
best thing you could ask for. and he deserved every bit of it. damn fine man who happened to have a burning 9and successful0 desire to pursue education to its fullest.
I release Toni from my emotional suction cup, and she returns to holding court for the many souls who need her to help them regain the parts of themselves they are afraid of losing with Marty dead.
We are invited to sit and be quiet while people talk, individually, about Marty.
He'd been diagnosed in March or so.
I slump in my chair.
so he didn't keep it from me like that other teacher. he wasn't trying to hide anything. he was actually doing ok. now i don't have to find some way to ask that question whose answer was none of my business.
He'd kept on teaching -- demanding of Toni that if she felt he wasn't being fair to his students with his time -- even as he was undergoing treatment for lung cancer -- that she tell him so he could pass his teaching duties on to someone else.
don't be mad at him. it's what he loved. l-o-v-e-d. like you love writing. it was his life's passion, outside the family parts of which you're going to meet via testimonial today. just ... he went out with a bang. he did what he was going to do, and then he accepted that in the end, things end.
And then Toni read the 675th "change a word here and there" adaptation of "Trees."
people grieve in their own way. horrible poetry is no crime. imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. it'll make a terribly funny story one day. just probably not today.
His kids talk about him. Apparently he bought the same kind of cereal for them every time until they told him to get something different, at which point he did, at which point he kept on buying that different stuff until they told him to change cereals again.
if your kids like it, they won't complain. one less thing for them to scream about. and if they don't tell you they want something new, they won't get anything new. this way, you teach them to tell you what they want. encourages their verbal skills and their independent thinking.
Various other people talk, and "Remember," by Josh Groban, is played as one of his favorite songs.
why didn't you
tell
me
you liked josh groban/ the conversations we could have had. now i can't listen to this song again without thinking about you.
oh.
wait.
duh.
damn you for teaching me even in your death.
thank you.