Mr. Sillick's swan song

A few weeks back my best friend and I set out for a long drive to visit an old friend.

He was right where we thought he'd be, stretched out under an old oak. It took us a while to find him, even with the use of two maps, and just as we were about to give up we realized we were stepping on him. Despite the solemnity of our visit, we laughed. It was so typical of him to be hiding.

Most of us have a role model or mentor who has inspired us at some point, influencing our thoughts and ideas of the world or our future career path. With the passing of days we may lose touch with them, but they are never quite forgotten.

For me, it is my high school English and journalism teacher, John S. Sillick. A simple man and lover of life, he was a columnist for The Buffalo News for over a decade, writing about life on his 200-acre farm in Lyndonville.

Mr. Sillick taught me how to live.

"Don't let school get in the way of your education," he used to tell us, the first real lesson I learned from him. He encouraged us to embrace new opportunities, even if they got in the way of schoolwork, citing a time in college when he declined an invitation to meet a local author to study for a math exam.

Make life sweet, was his second lesson. "Bliss is where you find it," he wrote in one of his early columns, "but the rumble of the belly is closer to home." His mantra repeats in my head when I find myself caught up in a bout of the blues. We make our own happiness, and when that doesn't work, we head for home, to the friends and family who care.

Last week a reading area of the high school library where he taught was dedicated in his honor, his words immortalized on the wall, at least until fresh paint covers them. It was good to see his family and old faces, as bittersweet as it was to walk down memory lane. Mr. Sillick's third lesson - always put people first.

Don't sweat it, was his fourth lesson. During long hours after school working on the school newspaper, being a teenage editor with no clue, he told me not to worry over the little things. Mistakes are inevitable. And then he would take another sip of his coffee and begin to whistle.

At my high school graduation Mr. Sillick played his guitar, singing a song he wrote titled, "Love is not a passing thing." Corny perhaps, but when he was killed two months later after his beloved John Deere tractor ran him over at his farm, corny memories came to mean a lot.

Thereafter, The Buffalo News and some of the local papers ran brief articles reporting on the accident and his last three weeks fighting for life in the ICU, and strangers, his readership, came to his funeral. I felt like I was living in a Lifetime movie.

Mr. Sillick's fifth lesson - life is short. Tomorrow could be your last. I had always thought it was such a clich?(c) saying until then. Even now with the passing of time it can be easy to forget, but it is the most important to remember.

Above all, Mr. Sillick was a storyteller. Over two years later I still have yet to read all of his columns, savoring them because they seem to provide me with answers just as I need them. Reading them feels like we're having a conversation again, he talks and I listen. Some are better than others, but few of us are ever fault free.

For a long while after his death I was tortured with the thought that we live, die and are forgotten, but Mr. Sillick found a way around that - through the sacred gifts of words and friendship.

My best friend and I stood over his grave, taking a look at his new surroundings. We expected to feel his presence there; some sort of miracle, but all we felt was cold January wind making our noses run.

And that was when I realized he wasn't an hour away buried in the ground, but with me, with every step I take, in every column of his I read.

There is no need to say goodbye as long as we don't forget.