the real tin thing

my teacher died

An old teacher of mine died recently. It was not a huge shock: he had entered hospice last year. When I found out I wrote him a note thanking him for being my teacher. I don’t know if he ever read it but really I hope he had ways of spending his time in hospice that were not reading email. The last time we had corresponded was in 2022, before my big medical crisis, because he was going to lead a seminar for the class of 2012 at our ten year reunion. I told him I would be there. Obviously, I wasn’t there. I kept meaning to explain what had happened but I was sick for a long time. I forgot. So it wasn’t a huge shock, no. It has had many aftershocks, though.

I mentioned this teacher a bit ago because he was the one who told me not to use phrases like “the fact that” or “the nature of.” In general, he was somebody who did really shape my ways of thinking, not only about writing, where I do think of his advice daily, but how I wanted to be. He was easy-going, but not a pushover; kind, but c…