Last weekend I was enjoying the unremarkable view of abandoned warehouses from my balcony when a seemingly random thought struck. A family friend has been sick with cancer, and it occurred that I should send him an e-mail to tell him that I was thinking about him. I even started composing the e-mail in my head, how I would talk about how much I missed him and how amazing he was and how we were all rooting for him. But then something happened and the thought tumbled away. I never got around to sending it.
I usually regret the e-mails I’ve sent rather than the ones I haven’t sent, so this is a first. Last night, Mr. Taylor, the family friend to whom I considered sending my love this past weekend, lost his battle with cancer.
I suppose this is a crueler, more digital extension of the old adage, “Never go to sleep angry.” I regret going to sleep without sending that e-mail, though who knows if he would’ve received it anyway. Still, it gnaws at me. It is so important to say what you mean and say what you feel to the people you love before it’s too late. I don’t know why we are all so bad at this.
Mr. Taylor was also a French teacher at my high school. I took his class for five years and still scored a 1 on the AP exam. He spoke French brilliantly and fluently but language lessons were sort of beside the point in his class. I think he really *got* how stupid and arbitrary high school is in a way that other teachers willfully dismiss. He did not disdain our immaturity or our angst–instead he relished in them without seeming condescending, which made us all feel good. He was one of the funniest, kindest, most fun-loving people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. We would occasionally take advantage of him for this, skipping class too much or talking too loudly or refusing to study. Sometimes he got angry, but he forgave us every time. As you can imagine, he was unimaginably patient. We owe him for that.
Mr. Taylor really was an institution at our school. He was flamboyant, hilarious and generous. He maintained these patented phrases (“Shut up don’t make ketchup but tomatoes do!), their ridiculousness trumped only by their longevity: passed between generations of French students, those who graduated in the ’90s could recite them as easily as those who graduated just last year. It’s obvious that Mr. Taylor shimmered with a loving legacy long before his death; people like this are definitively special and almost impossible to find.
I only wish I’d remembered to write him that e-mail.
This explains him entirely. May he rest in peace.