In Memoriam

I read Tuesdays with Morrie a few months back. Apart from being one of the best written books i've read, it touched a chord in me somewhere.

I too was seeing a teacher battling a serious illness, and living on sheer will power and determination.

Reading a book it all seems unreal in a way. Its difficult to imagine someone dying to be so full of life and so insistent on being independent.

But seeing my teacher doing it made it all so real.

At the time i didn't get how he could still continue taking classes and insisting on conducting all aspects of the course when he was so obviously in pain. He would be on pain meds, sometimes to the extent that it affected his memory. He would lose track of what he was talking about. He would repeat the same things over and over again.
But through it all he never once gave up. He never took the easy way out.

Reading Tuesdays with Morrie i realised that sometimes lessons learnt in a classroom arent as important as the ones you learn outside of them.

Spending 9 months with my teacher i realise that sometimes lessons learnt in a classroom arent as important as the one who teaches them.

Just by being who he was, my teacher taught me more important things that theories and therapies. He taught me how to take charge of who i am and what i do. He taught me to be responsible for what i think, say and do. He taught me how easy it is to let an illness become an excuse for mediocre performance and how difficult it is to perform no matter what the condition. He taught me that i really am in the sensori-motor stage.

My teacher was incorrigible, difficult, stubborn, opiniated.

But then, he was the only one i knew who couldnt care what anyone thought of him. He was the only person i knew who truly made choices he wanted to and lived with their consequences.

He lived life like he wanted to.

My teacher passed away yesterday.

This is in memory of him.

Good night Father.