I'll be honest, I never that I'd be writing something like this. Especially not when I've only been out of college a few months.

I honestly expected to have an opportunity to return to my hometown on a reunion tour of sorts and talk with all the old teachers I had. I figured that I would get the chance to hear from some of my teachers how they thought I could end up becoming a teacher myself.

One of those teachers, however, would have probably come with an "I told you so," given that he thought I could've been a teacher even when I was a seventh-grader at Goddard Junior High in Midland, TX.

That teacher was Mr. Joseph "Joe" Griffith, and he was a victim of the shootings in Odessa, TX.

For a bit of context, I moved to Midland, TX in 2009, at the start of my seventh-grade year, and by at the start, I mean I enrolled during the first day of school that year. Outside of family, I didn't know anyone in Midland and I didn't have any family the same year as me at Goddard.

What I did have was a good mind that helped me excel at most things as soon as I started school. I believe the area I excelled the most was mathematics, and my math teacher noticed pretty quickly that I had a mind for math. Mr. Griffith took every opportunity to push and test how good I was at math and how good I could be, to the point of convincing me to try UIL Mathematics.

Long story short, I ended up being really good at UIL Mathematics and compete at the Texas State Level. I placed high at the state competition and Mr. Griffith told me about how he was going to recognize myself and the only other member of Goddard's UIL team at the year-end assembly. As much as I was happy about my success, I wasn't too keen on being recognized for it.

I wouldn't say that I was too shy about it, but I still really hadn't made MIdland my home yet. I was slowly going into my own as a person, but I definitely wasn't quite ready to be recognized as the kid who was basically a "mathlete." I was already nerdy for a football player, but winning a math award for doing well in a math competition seemed like going too far into the nerd side of things.

Then Mr. Griffith told me he could actually see me being a math teacher, math professor, or even a mathematician one day.

Once again, a bit of context for why that was a significant moment at the time.

So one of the things we would do when we had a substitute for math class was watch an old TV show called "Numb3rs" (old in the context of today, not old back in 2009). Basically, the show revolves around two brothers, one an FBI Agent and the other a mathematician, who solved crimes. The mathematician brother used high-level math to help solve crimes and I found the whole concept to be entertaining and interesting.

When Mr. Griffith told me that, I didn't necessarily think that I would head down that path, but it was the principle of the whole conversation. I hadn't even known him for a year, and he already thought that I could be in that class of intellectual, among the brightest in my field and considered an expert at some point.

The crazy thing about it all was, I might have taken that idea and come full-circle to that exact career path. I haven't really decided if I want to try and follow that to the end result of being a "professional" mathematician, but by almost complete accident, I did become a math teacher. I have even started to notice that I have taken parts of my teaching style from how he taught me.

My point is if I skipped from the end of seventh-grade where Mr. Griffith was presenting me my award with a flattering speech to where I am today. you would think it was scripted because it was one of those moments that just seems like it was meant to happen. It would be like a Hollywood ending.

Then it would have one of those credits where it takes about where everyone ended up, and we would read how he was killed during the incident in Midland-Odessa. The movie ends without a happy ending because there isn't one here. It's a somber ending.

That's because it isn't a movie. It's real life, and in real life, we don't always get Hollywood endings.

But we do get memories.

It reminds me of this quote by Maya Angelou: "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." Since I found out about what happened to Mr. Griffith, I have had time to go back to those memories and remember how he made me feel.

It inspires me to be that kind of teacher, one who can connect with students and help them down their path. I hope that I can have the opportunity to see the potential in someone and help them try and realize it, even if it's just a step toward that potential.

I owe that to Mr. Griffith because he did that for me.