The title of this post is not mine; it’s a refrain from a poem and a phrase on a t-shirt, both of which were written/created to memorialize the sudden death of Peter Arthur, a man who I was lucky enough to have as a teacher my freshman year of high school.
February 4th marked the eighth anniversary of his death. This is the first year I haven’t had some sort of Facebook status with the above phrase, lacking this year in part because I rarely use Facebook now and in part because there are very few people with whom I am Facebook friends with now that would understand. It’s odd to me, I guess, that I didn’t have someone to do the whole, “wait, how was that eight years ago?” thing with, but at the same time, it’s also strange that not posting on social media feels strange, that it almost feels like I’ve forgotten to remember because I didn’t remember publicly on the day of the anniversary.
I moved to the town containing said high school the August before senior year of high school; there are stark differences between the town and my hometown – socially, economically, politically. Mr. Arthur, in many ways, was crucial to me finding my footing. (Sidenote, I now realize why I’m sort of a pack rat, because I have no idea if I’m misremembering his class was my first class of the day or not, and I could check that the next time I go home home, maybe, possibly, if I can find the right box.) My locker was right outside his classroom, and due to the wonky school bus schedule, I would get to school at 7:05 even though classes didn’t start until 7:45. He almost always came in at 7:15, and we’d say hi and chat and that gave me such a wonderful sense of having some sort of anchor, someone at that school to whom I mattered. I’ve come a long way since then. We talked the Friday afternoon before he died and made plans to catch up the following week (because we were busy, because there would be time).
And this post is off-topic, in a sense, if only because this posts exists only to say that I miss him, that I remember, that time is a very strange thing, that putting things off can have unforeseen consequences.
February is a time to tell those you care about that you care about them. Too many terrible things have happened in February throughout the years.
Regular posts to return soon.