The Obituary

It didn’t do her justice. A listing out of her awards and her careers and her roles of leadership hardly seemed fair. You want to tell me about her failing health for several years, but mention nothing of her passion for life that took up far more glorious years? And yet here is her final proclamation, amidst type-o’s and the listing of her degrees, her flame goes out, almost boringly so.

I suppose next to precise cataloged details printed on newsprint, I know little about her, but I feel like I know much. And why shouldn’t I? I was horrible at math and so I spent countless hours after class seated next to her desk as we pushed buttons on a graphing calculator together or penciled and erased, penciled and erased the workings of a trig equation. She saw tears of mine, and quite frankly, I saw tears of hers. We both just wanted to be free to do what we were most passionate about, but it felt like there was always someone questioning us.

She had a daughter that was a dancer, and her eyes would light up when she would speak of her.

She had a quiet smile. A gentle heart. A motherly sort of soul and yet you can be sure something brave and adventurous was brewing underneath all that softness. She did not do math because it was required of her. She did it because she couldn’t help herself and it was out of that infectious spirit that she taught. She loathed the question, “When will I ever need to use this again in real life?” and I imagine it was because, to her, life couldn’t possibly be real without the mystery of numbers. They flowed out of her like words to a poet, and she never thought to question why. She was taken aback when we did. Does one need an explanation for beauty?

I can’t imagine how trying and lonely some of those years of teaching must have felt. She was an explorer trapped in a room with high school students who would sooner turn their backs to you and discuss last night’s football game or who had sex with who then to delight in bigger things like learning and living life to its fullest. At what point do your own dreams feel foolish and out of place next to the trivial interests of those who have settled for far less? I sincerely hope it was not my senior year class that brought her to failing health, why with all our stubbornness and hard hearts and disinterest and misplaced passions. She seemed to continue on valiantly, demanding respect in her own shy way. But she seemed more tired and empty then when I first met her.

Just three years shy of 50 years of marriage, a grandmother, a mother, I find myself wishing I could know her outside of that second story math room. Mrs. Myers’ room. It will always be her room, even though the school building no longer stands and her own body is far more soul than temple now. It is still her room. It is still where I know her. In her element, seated behind a desk, clueless that remnants of chalk are brushed on her face like fairy dust, purposely oblivious to so much so that she can continue to live fully.

I still am not great at math, and I can’t remember the last time I needed a graphing calculator or a pencil and eraser to work out some death-defying equation, however, her passion has come in quite handy to me. I have tapped into it time and time again, and I have come to love learning in a way that she modeled quite naturally. I think of her sometimes as I think of my lofty adventurous dreams or as I write a paragraph where the words flow freely or as I see someone mock the things of life that are of great value. And I dab my own fairy dust on my cheeks and carry on, purposely oblivious, so that I too can continue to live fully.

I hope that some day I too am remembered for far more than my degrees and awards, the number of my children or the roles in which I have led. I hope my obituary in the newspaper is a gross and boring misrepresentation of all that really transpired while breath was in my lungs. And I hope that my death brings a far greater understanding of life, both to me and those who loved me.

Tagged as: death, life, obituary