Bill Lee. What a Guy.
Talking about unorthodox, crazy, funny, and just all around comedic, if there was anything that Bill Lee was, it is all of the aforementioned words. He wasn't just funny all the time though, on one of the worst days of a certain student's life, he was there for that student. Now the student I'm talking about isn't an enemy nor is he simply a friend, the student I am speaking of is me. No teen expects the text messages I received earlier that day, nor would they want them. Two hours earlier I had Bill Lee's class, I had gotten several text messages from my step father telling me to go home because my mother was going to take her own life. Stop for a second and picture that. Your MOTHER, the woman who birth to you, suddenly finds her life so unbearable that she wants to end it all. I spent a good portion of the day in the principal's office as a result of it all.
By the time I had gotten to any of my classes a vast majority of my class mates and comrades had heard what had happened. Several of my teachers got it. They knew what was going on, the few that knew had been told by either class mates or by me. I managed to calm down enough to go to my third and fourth hour classes, but fifth hour was when I couldn't take anymore. I started to explain to one of my best friends, Robby Mandel, what was happening and then to Brett Luedke, and suddenly I was unable to talk, a big lump had placed itself in my throat. I felt the hot tears rolling down my cheeks, and then Brett grabbed me by the arm and pulled me out of the classroom and into the hallway. Out in the hallway I explained exactly what had transpired just a few short hours before.
Then he walked out. Bill Lee. He asked what was going on. I told my tale to him. I'd never seen a teacher tear up before until I saw his eyes. He could feel the same pain I was feeling. His heart was breaking because he saw one of his most charismatic and cheerful students was feeling a level of pain that no high school student should ever have to feel. He looked into my eyes and told me how sorry he was. He told me how everything was going to be fine. He cracked a few jokes and even managed to make me smile a few times. He extended all of my assignments for the next couple weeks, they were due whenever I was able to complete them.
That day Bill Lee became one of my personal heroes. I had developed a completely new level of respect for him. I had never respected anyone more, nor could I ever respect a friend anymore than I respect Bill Lee. He helped push me through one of the darkest times in my life, and not only did he push me through it, he changed me. He helped me become a better person as a result of everything. Over the course of the days that followed, he asked me every single day how my mother was doing. It was his support that helped me to keep going. I could never repay him for everything that his support did for me that week, but perhaps in time I may be able to at least tell him just how much his kind words helped me.
You see, teachers aren't just there to teach us. Teachers are very good at listening when we need someone to talk to. We sometimes forget that teachers are just as good at drying tears as our friends and family are. On days like that one though, even the busiest teachers step up to the plate and show their students just how much they mean to every teacher, regardless of subject and grade. Bill Lee taught me that on that dark day. He showed me that it didn't matter that I was a senior, it didn't matter that I was in Advanced United States History. The only thing that mattered was that I was human. He demonstrated to all his students that day that he is human too. That he feels emotion too, the tears in his eyes proved that to everyone. Sometimes we have the misconceptions that our teachers aren't mortal humans, we think they are something somehow above mortality and humanity, but it's on days like that, that everyone, teachers included, stick together to show their students just how important they are to the future of the world.
