An Elegy

I wax elegiac today in memory of a brave and inspiring soul. As he makes his way through the arched trees and into the calm and peaceful valley of the afterworld, I reflect on the way he has touched my life.

My sophomore year of college brought change and heartache. I began the year with a new boyfriend. I moved into an on-campus apartment with a few friends, or so I thought, and I had a class with a sworn enemy. Okay, not really, but Tiffany and I were not friends in High School, and while I knew our paths would cross as English Majors, I still wasn't prepared to see her so soon. The class was was an English core in Fiction, reading it and writing it. I hardly remember what we read because I was engrossed in the writing. At the helm, the soon-to-be-Doctor Professor Scott Odom. He was a father and a Ph.D. student, a writer of published and unpublished works. He loved his students with a passion that is rarely seen amongst the professors and teachers in our lives. He helped us write, encouraged us to have our writing read by others, and apparently, had cancer. We never knew.

He is gone. With him he takes the stories, the tears, the elation and frustration of hundreds of writers. The confidence and trust placed with him will follow him to his early grave, and for this, I mourn. He was a wonderful man, a talented writer, and a positive soul. He worked so diligently each day, something i can't say I would have the courage to do were I struggling with his disease.

He was in my life for a mere semester, but he affected some of the changes that would affect me forever. I started my novel in his class. I read it to him in his office. I sent copies of it home with students and peers for their parents to read. I emailed it to my entire family and heard their feedback. i have never been so open with my art. And you know what else? Tiffany and I talked, she shared with me the troubles she faced, and I gave her mine. We made s'mores over the burner in her dorm stove as she listened to my problems with my roomates, and we became lifelong friends. I became a lifelong writer. i believed in myself and my ability.

I suppose my sadness comes from my own failure to communicate this to him. He was young; I guess I assumed I had all the time in the world to gather my stories, write them, have them published, and present him with a copy and a note of thanks. That time, like Dr. Odom, has passed. I am sorry.