by Wing-0 » Sun Mar 27, 2011 5:00 am
I just came back from saying my last farewell to a teacher from my time in elementary school. She talked to all the people who were present in a calm voice. "There is no need to grieve my death. I have had a long and difficult life, that's true, but I leave after planting hundreds of seeds for our future. All that is left is for those newer little seeds to sprout and flourish. To those that already have, plant your own."
She then asked all of us in the sweetest way her tired voice allowed her to let her close her eyes to see her final dream as her life entered its final hours. And indeed, four hours later, she died in her sleep. Calm and surrounded by the people who were her family, friends and former pupils.
She was the one who taught me how to divide, multiply and calculate my first square root with only a paper and a pencil, she taught me that there are little organisms that decompose dead matter and that everything we touch is made of tiny little things called molecules that are in turn made up of even tinier things called atoms.
So, the tear I shed now is not one of sadness. It is a tear of pride in remembering the first teacher outside of my immediate family that guided my interest for the natural world and its wonders into science, not television and gossip rags.
