Short Stuff

You were always happy, always on the move with a great zest for life and a heart full of love. We loved you too and checked to see if you’d get mad if we mimicked your habits, but you laughed instead. When we were in school together, you often horsed around; I ribbed you about eye trouble, eyes too close to the ground. You lived life with gusto, knowing your time was short; playing hard, working harder, often with a jolly retort. Honest to a fault, you saw the positive side of things; kept things in order, solid rock with no mood swings. Cut off jeans, gray tee shirt, tinted glasses, baseball hat; great big grin, teasing quip, a big hello, a friendly chat. You were the best teacher any student ever had; I could call on you to help as though you were my dad. You drove my school bus on many a winter morn; dressed in brown coveralls, bottom legs frayed and worn. You were there in summer, helping coach baseball games; at football with your camera or turning cartwheels in the gym. You taught us how to care, how to study, how to play; how to work on the computer and make the most of every day. So determined to learn, spending hours at a throw; self-teaching all the things a teacher needed to know. You are the poem of my life, who you were tells the tale; your poem will last forever, healing memories never pale. You wrote the words of this poem, pages of my life tell the story; you will read them back to me, when we meet again in glory.