can't stop crying

So I'm sitting here trying to buckle down and do my Modeling assignment that's due in the morning, and my mind is wandering and I can't focus and I realize I should stop pretending that everything is OK. Someone important to me passed away last week, and I will have to accept it at some point.

Today I walked through my classes and tried to appear to pay attention to the teachers and the people who were doing what we do after we leave and come back after a while: catch up. And I did my best not to burden other people with my grief. That's one of the things about being here. I am among busy people I don't know well who don't know me. There's a robust social aspect to school, but for me it still is and feels much like a workplace environment. To share something like this in a face-to-face interaction would mean a socially correct pat on the shoulder, a five second pause, then immediate departure. Can't be known as the person who burst out in tears in the middle of OB class.

Writing seems to help. Crying does, too. It's the remembering that hurts the most even when it makes me smile. The last time we spoke--and it's been a while since we spoke--he was working on a paper about the ritual of celebrating in the end zone after a touchdown. And I remember I wasn't surprised. He could be lecturing on political uprisings in Kenya one moment, and writing a paper about how black folks feel about their hair the next. I remember sitting in his office thinking about how long he must have been a professor here to have such a nice office, earnestly telling him about the stuff I was trying to figure out with my college studies. And he would ask me questions. Didn't offer much in the way of pointing me in a certain direction or drowning me in the names of people to call, as professors can. Didn't seem to get too riled up about the crises of electives and study abroad in my undergraduate education. He just offered me an open door, a comfortable chair, and a real mellow chat. And I will miss him.