Sometimes life just sucks

28-07-2009


I am sitting here having breakfast and getting ready for the working day, except this working day is going to be slightly different to other working days because I have a small stop to make first.

I am going to a funeral.

During last week a great man (in my and many others eyes) died from cancer. He was our English teacher and quiet possibly the smartest man any of us knew. In an area of Dublin not known for its culture loving, a part of the world that not everyone would know how to fully enjoy a book, this man instilled in as many people as possible a love of the English language.

Or the "Invaders Tongue" as he was want to call it. The small paradox being that this teacher loved the Irish language more than anything, yet taught the other one as his profession.

He was the sort of teacher that, after you left school, you would speak highly of and remember the funny things that he did during your six years in education. The sort of teacher that would make a difference in your life, if only you gave him the respect he deserved.

The difference he made in mine was that, because of him, I started to write. After handing up some essays for marking one year he just had a short conversation with me about my levels of writing and said that I should consider writing short stories. By the end of my sixth year I had typed up a rough novel and given it to him for a quick read. On the last day of term he had read most of it and said, with tuning, that it was something that definitely should be on a bookshelf.

One of the many reasons that I write is because a man that I highly respected told me it would be a waste of my skills not to.

I remember my first year in college when I happened to bump into this teacher in the canteen. There was the usual chinflapping and catch up on various aspects of life and then he asked what course I was doing in the university. I told him that I had taken up Computer Science and I swear I could see his heart break. He actually said that it was such a waste, then wished me all the success in the course.

Because that was the sort of man he was. But just because I (may have) done the wrong course, I kept the writing up as a hobby because of this one person.

He was the sort of teacher that you wished would retire early so that he could really enjoy his later years. He wasn't like most of the teachers these days that complain about having too few holidays and not enough pay. For him it was all about the job and the joy of teaching. That aspect alone had me respect him.

Sadly his early retirement came about for all the wrong reasons. He had cancer in his back and didn't get to enjoy his just rewards in the end.

Which is why life sucks, because of all the teachers in my secondary school he really deserved better than that.

But he is no doubt up in the cloudy place now having a cigar and enjoying some whiskey. As he has a right to.

Blue_jester