My math teacher, Emily Geiger has always been more than a math teacher to me. She was my math tutor for two years of high school and my actual math teacher for the other two. She was my first choice when it came to teacher recommendations, and quite honestly I aspire to be even half the person that she is. To give you an idea of Mrs. Geiger, she is like a Disney princess with a whiteboard. She always wears the most adorable sweaters, she loves puzzles and mind games, and I have never seen her without a smile. Her love of math was something that shocked me, as it had always been the bane of my existence; I think one of the most memorable things she has ever said was, “if you guys can be half as happy as I am teaching math, you will do so well in whatever you choose to do.”
However, it wasn’t just her passion for math that made me love her, it was the passion that she had for her students and just her general ability to love life. We would spend block periods discussing the most recent Survivor episode, playing beach volleyball using our desks as a net, or talking about how she met the love of her life, Dr. Geiger.
Dr. Geiger was an incredibly intelligent man of the church who taught my sophomore ethics class more than two years ago. It was a few months before then that we had found out that Dr. Geiger had been diagnosed with cancer and would be undergoing treatments that may interfere with our class. Well, not two years later we sat in the auditorium hearing the one thing that no one wanted to hear, Dr. Geiger had entered into hospice care.
The room was silent. If there were any sounds it was the sound of students crying. I immediately left school, crying as a drove home. My mom walked outside said, “I know. I just heard.” The only thing I could muster was, “they don’t deserve this.” It was true, Dr. and Mrs. Geiger are probably the most undeserving people to go through such a terrible thing, but I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason, and I know now that God had a plan. I felt I had to do something, so I went home and grabbed the prayer shawl that was made for me when I was going through heart surgery. I put it in a bag with a note, thinking that they probably have too much on their minds to even open packages. Mrs. Geiger was out of school for about two weeks and soon we received the announcement that Dr. Geiger had passed away, surrounded by his family.
The school organized a special memorial so that as many students and faculty as possible could gather to honor Dr. Geiger’s life. I could never explain the feeling that I got as I walked into that church only to see almost the entire school seated quietly, with Mrs. Geiger sitting in the front row. The memorial was beautiful, students sang, alumni spoke of Dr. Geiger’s teachings, and the chaplain gave a moving sermon about how Dr. Geiger’s one regret was never writing a book. He said that his response to Dr. Geiger was, “I think you did write your book, it’s written in your students.”
We processed out with hundreds of people waiting in line to hug Mrs. Geiger. I was shocked as I got to the front of the line to see that she wasn’t crying. Yet, almost every person who walked out of that church was in tears. I walked up to her, told her I missed her and prepared to move down the line, but Mrs. Geiger stopped, grabbed my hand, and said, “Thank you so much for the prayer shawl. Dr. Geiger got it the day before he died.” I broke down. I couldn’t let my favorite teacher see me cry so I thanked her for saying so, and walked back to my car in tears.
I couldn’t even fathom the kind of strength that Mrs. Geiger exuded in that moment, but I would like to think that her strength came from the community that surrounded her. The whole situation only made me realize how many hours upon hours we spend with our teachers without truly getting to know them. I always knew that Mrs. Geiger was a joyful, intelligent, generous person, but that kind of strength can only come from someone that is truly in touch with what matters in life. As much as I have to thank Mrs. Geiger for all of her help with the geometric formulas and trig identities, I have to thank her so much more for making me recognize that life isn’t really about the big things. Life is made up of millions and millions of small moments, and that moment in the church parking lot, hugging my math teacher will stay with me forever.
