Vale, Magister

The rant I promised you today will have to wait until tomorrow. My friend Joel died yesterday. I can't believe that I've never written about him before, but I searched the archives at my old diary and I couldn't find anything. I used the search term "Latin", because it would have come up in anything I wrote about him.

Joel was a big man with a deep voice, perhaps the deepest voice I have ever heard in person; he was also one of the most gentle and shy people I ever knew. But I didn't know how shy he was until years after we had become friends because of this: On my first day on the staff at the high school, I was terrified to go into the faculty room in the morning, but I did, and I sat in the smokers' room and lit up, and the next thing I knew, this giant man with intensely blue eyes sat down next to me and was my friend. He had a fabulous laugh and an interesting backstory, which was that he had spent about ten years as a teaching brother in a ... I guess monastery is the right word .. not far from here. He had given that up, and since then lived at home with his parents; I guess he would have been in his mid to late thirties then. He did all kinds of interesting crafts; one of his jobs in the monastery was to make the brothers' robes, so they taught him to sew. We talked often about the various craft projects we were doing.

The following December, as I have written elsewhere, my sister gave birth to twins, had seizures the next day, and then went into a coma for a week. I had to go to work every day because ... well, because I had to, and Joel held my hand whenever I came into the faculty room and told me he was praying for her. Although this is not my thing, I knew it was his and that he was sincere, and so it meant something to me. I never forgot that. A year or so later, his father died, and I had someone help me figure out how to send a mass card. Joel was incredibly touched by that, and commented on it even years later.

We were mostly faculty room buddies, although for my first few years there, we also had the same graduation night duty, so we hung out then, too. When I became pregnant with R, he was incredibly excited. Once, we were sitting side-by-side in the faculty room and I felt the baby kick, and put his hand on my belly so he could feel it. Tears came to his eyes. You realize that this is a man who never married and was never going to, and was never going to have children. Again, this was something he brought up years later, and thanked me for letting him have that experience.

Was Joel gay? A good question, and one of the school's eternal mysteries. He was certainly not straight. He actually lived in the same house his entire life, except for those few years at the monastery, so he lived with his parents, and then his mother, and then alone. He had a very best friend whom he always introduced as "my buddy W---", but they had been best friends since they were little boys, and their parents were close friends before that. They never lived together, although they often traveled together and socialized, more or less, as a couple. I don't know if sexuality was even in Joel's make-up, though. It's possible that they were non-sexual soulmates. It is, of course, irrelevant.

When he was being honored for 25 years in teaching, he refused to go to the dinner because he couldn't bear to be the center of attention (except in the classroom), but my friend E and I convinced him to go. He sat between us. Someone got up and made a lovely speech about him, after which he came to his feet at the table, intoned a deep and nearly silent "Thank you", and sat down. He was too shy for more than that. He did not go to the dinner when he was one of the retirees six years ago.

He taught, primarily, Latin, and secondarily, Spanish. Some years he also taught German. He also spoke and read Hebrew, read classical Greek and some Aramaic, and I believe, finally Italian. He was insane in the classroom. He had funny names for each and every child, did all kinds of routines, and showed every class every year "The Clash of the Titans", to which he added his own running commentary.

When my oldest nephew came to the high school and took Latin, Joel was delighted. The year he had each of my sister's twins in class -- one in Latin, one in Spanish -- he was beside himself, as these were the very recipients, along with their mother, of his prayers years earlier. My own R somehow managed not to get into his Spanish class, but my K was a Latin student, and she and Joel developed quite a bond. He adored her. When she became ill during her junior year, he was a rock for me, and would attend administrative meetings about her as representative of all her teachers and would hold my hand under the table. He retired just before her senior year of high school.

Several months later, K and I were at a craft store and I saw him across the store, and nudged her and pointed to him. She dropped everything she was holding and raced across the store into his arms, shrieking as she ran "Magister! Magister!" That's Latin for teacher, or master, which is how his students addressed him in class.

Religion was a very big part of Joel and who he was. He attended a Catholic church that focused closely on the Jewish roots of Christianity. Although I had always known this, I was unprepared for what I heard when I attended his mother's funeral; I can't recall the details now, but there were so many loving references to the Old Testament and to Jewish customs and traditions. I know I once had a discussion of anti-semitism with him, and he was appalled by it and in fact couldn't understand Christians who were anti-semitic. "Listen," he said. "I follow a Jew. Case closed." Faith was real and deep and just obvious to him. And comforting. I was told today that he had fallen on Sunday, at home, alone, and when someone came and found him Monday morning, his face wore an expression of peace and happiness.

You know, if you've read two words of my site, that I follow no organized religion and have a somewhat disorganized sense of my own personal faith, which is strong nonetheless. And today, I believe that Joel is with Jesus. It's where he deserves to be, and where he is without a doubt.

K and I are going to the wake on Thursday and the funeral on Friday. He has no family left at all, but W--- will be there, as well as decades worth of our colleagues from the high school who loved him, and, I suspect, many former students as well. A former student once mentioned him by name as the teacher who had changed his life, in a letter that was published in Newsweek. Joel was so embarrassed, but the rest of us were like, well, of course.

I'll be back tomorrow.

WATCHING FRIENDS :: ENTRY #1562