Today I did my usual guest teaching for an algebra 1 class. When the students started zoning out, I gave them a break with the instructions, "Your brain acts like it's running a marathon when you're doing math, so you have to feed it. Always eat before a math class. Now eat!"
While most of the students ate, a 13-year-old, aspiring writer came up to me, "Could you read my story and tell me how I can write better?"
"Sure!" I read her 1.5 page fantasy with only one interruption from another student---normally it's like George Orwell's "1984" with an interruption at least every 5 minutes from one of the 35 students.
Some future English teacher would need to help her learn her punctuation rules, but she wrote a well-structured, creative fantasy piece. I repeated what Maralys Wills had taught me, "Always try to put the most important word next to the period and the most important sentence at the end of the paragraph." Then I explained, "You use your visual descriptions well and managed to develop a new world in just a page and a half which is great, but remember to use your other senses, too---touch, smell, taste, and intuition (if you sense danger or something)."
She was so excited to have a real author's help that she drew a beautiful picture and note for me and gave it to me at the end of math class to thank me! That's why I teach. :-)
Unfortunately, the rest of my day was thrown into turmoil when I checked in on my famous friend, surferdude. We normally talk every day, but I warned him on Friday that I was going incommunicado during the writers conference. We both live busy lives, so we always let the other know when we may not return a missed "check-in" call. It's our way of knowing the other didn't die surfing or kayaking. I should have called him twice that day, because hours after that last call with him, he told me that he had a heart attack while he was doing a public event!
Surferdude's turning 48 on our February 27th birthday, is extremely physically fit, has low blood pressure and cholesterol, and teaches me how to eat healthy even though I'm a certified nutritionist. It's inconceivable for him to have a heart attack. However, he has often told me that he didn't plan on living long, though I openly refused to accept that concept. Apparently, he's built exactly like his surfer dad, who died of a heart attack at 56. Surferdude must have the same type of heart defect.
Pulling my mental faculties back from my shock, I stated as fact, "You know that I love you. I always will. You can't die. Who would I talk to every day? Plus, you still have to finish my art board." (An art board is a surfboard that is designed to be art and hung on a wall. It is too expensive to be used as a surfboard.)
"Oh, I've decided on a different design for yours. I'm not going to use the Wade print. It's all going to be my design, my art."
"Good. I'll like that better." I stared out the window in disbelief that I could have lost my dear friend. "I can't believe how beautiful the sky is today. I always feel so guilty looking at the beautiful day from my window and not being out in it."
"Yeah, I want to go surfing, but the doctors told me that I can't for awhile. I just may go anyway."
I decided to keep talking with him longer than our usual call between our obligations---until the surf window closed, so surfing today wouldn't be an option for him.
We viewed his new website together. I love his video of him surfing with a dog and a "Make a Wish" woman with no arms. Surferdude also does a lot of other charitable events out of his love for surfing---not because he's famous and is supposed to do so.
He mused after I got him to tell me the details of his heart attack, "I don't fear death."
"I don't either. I know where I'm going after this world."
"I've left a good legacy. I've become a world champion. I've helped a lot of charities. I just want to make sure that I've taken care of my daughter before I go."
Hearing his love for his daughter always warms my heart. Then I remembered the first time he told me that Jesus Christ is his Lord and Savior. Compelled by God I said, "You have a heart for God even though you have to maintain a bad-boy surfer image. You have a heart full of good that you typically hide, but you show your surfing world how to live without doing drugs. You're such a great role model that I constantly tell my drug-using, surfer students about you. I know where you'll be when you're not in this world."
Immediately after that statement my home phone rang announcing the principal of the school where I recently interviewed for a teaching position. "I've got to get this," I said while reaching for my land line.
"O.K."
"Bye!"
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