I never got a chance to blog about it because my blog was in shambles at the time and I was in the midst of exams…

It’s usually a sad thing when life is unnecessarily cut short. It wasn’t a friend nor a student on campus. It was a professor, but his death felt really relevant to my own life. I was utterly shocked when I found out.

You see, the university sends out emails about any types of alerts or important news. The last one being that there was a man found dead in the pool at a residence near school. No homicide was suspected. It was unfortunate to read about, but I had no idea who it was since they didn’t release any names. One day in class, a friend informed me about the man who died…and how he was someone we knew.

As background information, for the first week of school I had a substitute professor for my Physics class since my actual professor was still on vacation (lucky man). He was very enthusiastic. He only taught for one week, but his words stuck with me. He had said something like, “I love teaching students. I’m not ready to teach a full quarter* yet, but maybe in the future. For now I’m just substituting.” (* quarter = a 10 week term of school)

As it turns out, he was the man who had died. That is truly tragic. Those words he had said still echo in my head when I think about it. He was so enthusiastic, and he wanted to continue his teaching in the future. But he never even got the chance. He was a young man. A man of about 37 years old, married, and just barely got his Ph.D. He was an aspiring professor, and he was already a valuable researcher at the university. It is truly sad.

My friend wondered why my Physics professor didn’t announce the death of this man at all. Our questions were answered about a week later in an email from my professor. It was truly touching and it made my eyes water up. The man who died was my professor’s best friend at the university. Apparently they were rather close. My professor chose not to announce the sad news because he figured we were in the midst of exams and nearing the end of the quarter towards finals so he didn’t want to burden anyone. That is very thoughtful of him, although I think maybe the other reason is that he was just too emotional to announce something like that in front of a lecture hall. I really felt sympathy for the the man, my professor, and everyone it may have affected. I didn’t even know the man personally, but I could definitely feel the loss that resulted from his death. It really is sad.