Death of a Mentor...
Today I received an email informing me that my old professor, Tom Davis, had died. I don't know why or how, just that it happened. It's a strange feeling to me to reflect upon this news, and it brings up many different emotions.
When I met Tom, I had just been kicked out of college after my first year of school. Before they got rid of me, I had found a strong bond with Philosophy and, failing to find suitable classes in my major at my sentence of community college, I vowed to take as much philosophy as I could. My first class with Tom was "The Story of Light," a great class that looked at the views of light over time from various disciplines. From the beginning, you could see that he was one of those rare professors, and although he took a sabbatical for a good part of the semester, I felt a bit better with attending community college after joining his class.
It wasn't until later that we became close. I would spend a half hour with him in the hallway after class, talking about the future and problems plaguing man-kind's path, or the plights of Descarte. I would also time and time again disappoint him with my half-assed papers, the ones he knew were below my level, but was too nice to punish me for.
I would bang those papers out in a single night, often not finishing before 1 am. One time, however, I spent a few days really doing my research. It was a paper on black holes, and when he handed it back, both he and Dennis (his co-professor for the class) told me how much better my work was. Unfortunately, that was not a new leaf for me, and I remember (at the end of my last class) that I really let him down.
I have thought back to the silent disappointment from Tom many times since that semester, and it remains one of the great failures of my life. I think that with all my past mentors, they have seen the disappointment in how I fail to achieve what I am capable of. It has been a silent hope that some day I might do something worthy of my potential. When that day came, they could all be there to see me and think "I guess he made it after all." Much like the kid who seeks his dad's approval when he accomplishes something great.
Tom is one of several mentors whom I had hoped to make-up for. A few that come to mind are Mrs Larson, my high school computer teacher, Dr Robinson, my Marist Physics teacher, and of course my Dad. These are some of the people that I think about when I strive to do better, and that provide my guilt when I give in to laziness. These people are the same whom I hope to surprise some day when I finally do something great. Today, time has showed me that my chances will not be around forever; And that single fact has almost brought me to tears.
When I met Tom, I had just been kicked out of college after my first year of school. Before they got rid of me, I had found a strong bond with Philosophy and, failing to find suitable classes in my major at my sentence of community college, I vowed to take as much philosophy as I could. My first class with Tom was "The Story of Light," a great class that looked at the views of light over time from various disciplines. From the beginning, you could see that he was one of those rare professors, and although he took a sabbatical for a good part of the semester, I felt a bit better with attending community college after joining his class.
It wasn't until later that we became close. I would spend a half hour with him in the hallway after class, talking about the future and problems plaguing man-kind's path, or the plights of Descarte. I would also time and time again disappoint him with my half-assed papers, the ones he knew were below my level, but was too nice to punish me for.
I would bang those papers out in a single night, often not finishing before 1 am. One time, however, I spent a few days really doing my research. It was a paper on black holes, and when he handed it back, both he and Dennis (his co-professor for the class) told me how much better my work was. Unfortunately, that was not a new leaf for me, and I remember (at the end of my last class) that I really let him down.
I have thought back to the silent disappointment from Tom many times since that semester, and it remains one of the great failures of my life. I think that with all my past mentors, they have seen the disappointment in how I fail to achieve what I am capable of. It has been a silent hope that some day I might do something worthy of my potential. When that day came, they could all be there to see me and think "I guess he made it after all." Much like the kid who seeks his dad's approval when he accomplishes something great.
Tom is one of several mentors whom I had hoped to make-up for. A few that come to mind are Mrs Larson, my high school computer teacher, Dr Robinson, my Marist Physics teacher, and of course my Dad. These are some of the people that I think about when I strive to do better, and that provide my guilt when I give in to laziness. These people are the same whom I hope to surprise some day when I finally do something great. Today, time has showed me that my chances will not be around forever; And that single fact has almost brought me to tears.