Time travel, and an ode to a favorite professor.

Have you ever had one of those days when you are hurtled back in time so rapidly that, before you know it, you have completely re-inhabited one of your earlier selves? That's how I felt today when I set foot on my college campus to attend a memorial service for my most influential college professor.

I know the precise moment when "college Lisa" took the place of "lawyer Lisa." I was talking to a colleague/friend on my cell phone as I drove onto campus; I was still talking to her as I emerged from my car to begin the walk to the chapel. But then an elderly couple approached and asked me how to get to the chapel, and I heard what seemed (to my ears, anyway) like a much younger version of my voice answer, "Over there, Ma'am, but I'll show you the way, as I'm headed there, too." I briefly told my colleague that I would talk to her tomorrow, but I had already gone back in time about 18 years at that point.

Essy explained as we walked with her husband to the chapel that they had known my professor for about 40 years, having first met him in a Sunday school class at their church. My professor remained a bachelor until he was about 50 years old, and apparently one of Essy's great joys in life until that time was to try to fix him up on dates with various eligible ladies. She said my professor put a stop to that practice after she offered to set him up with a friend of hers who had “decided not to become a nun after all,” saying that he would assume responsibility for his own social life, thank you very much. It was shortly after that when my professor met Dottie, who became his wife for the next 31 years.

The relatively plain, narrow and high-ceilinged campus chapel held a multitude of alumni, faculty and community members. Our common bond was the love and friendship of a man who taught psychology and so much more. The sun's rays reached through the chapel windows and bent the rich primary colors of the stained glass into a beautiful border of color on the white wall surrounding each window frame. One of the first things one learned upon meeting my professor was the depth of love he bore for his wife and three children. So it felt right to learn from one of the speakers that my professor's children have grown up to be a psychologist and a writer and a teacher . . . which were three of the things he did best. His son's poem about the professor's use of words in his relationships with all of us, and the pleasure Ted found in writing with his father in the last stage of his life, was just right in so many ways.

Another eulogy was moving as well . . . my professor’s best friend (the retired registrar of the college) asked the college President to deliver his words because he was too grief-stricken to say them himself. I loved his words because they were simple and brought back fond memories of our friend instead of trying to teach us something with quotes from people who didn't know him. Some of the tidbits that rang truest about my professor included his lifelong love of the Detroit Tigers, borne of his first four years of life in Detroit, and his habit of taking a British tea daily, borne of his childhood and teenage years after his Welsh parents were forced to return to England. The story of how my professor celebrated the end of World War II (which he saw from the vantage point offered by the British Royal Navy) by attending a symphony performance was new to me, but sounded just like him. We heard of the twists and turns that ultimately brought my professor to a small liberal arts college in Central Texas, where he taught for 43 years, 25 years of which he spent chairing the psychology department.

It was at that college, in that psychology department, that I met my professor. He was my faculty advisor, presided over an uncountable number of my psychology courses (it was my major) and coordinated the two summer internships in which I participated. But more than that: he was my mentor, my quiet cheerleader and my friend. I realize now that my professor was more formally-educated and well-traveled, but otherwise very similar to my own gentle and encouraging father (though the professor would never have let you know he was either well-educated or worldly in experience). He wasn’t that kind of man; he was the kind of man who listened both quietly and intensely, who never made any person feel uneducated or naïve or belittled, who fostered a sense of self-confidence in you so subtly that you only realized later that he made you feel as if you had limitless possibilities. I believe he was one of the first persons, if not the very first person, with whom I shared my LSAT score; he managed to look extremely proud and pleased without seeming a bit surprised at how well I had done. In addition to moral support, he taught me how to listen, both in class and out of it, a skill that has made me a much better friend and lawyer. There are many life questions I have now with which I think my professor could have helped me, though he would have just viewed it as talking things over . . . questions about work and love and faith and politics (not necessarily in that order). I think he would have enjoyed trading baseball stories and talking about my newfound love of opera together if I had done a better job of keeping in touch with him in recent years.

All of these memories and thoughts and feelings came rushing at me today as I sat on the red velvet cushion of my chapel pew, focusing on the bright colors surrounding the stained glass windows while I tried to stem the flow of my tears. Some were tears of grief, for the lost opportunity to exchange thoughts with and say goodbye to my professor. I spoke with him a few times in the years since graduation, but not recently. Strangely, I had found myself thinking of my professor a number of times in the days before he died although I did not know he was in seriously ill health or near the end of his life. Others were tears of memory and gratitude and honor. Today I was reminded of the person I was when I knew my professor best, and of the person whom he believed I was and that I could be. Maybe that memory was the cause of at least a few of my tears.

Thank you, my professor, for all that you were and all that you saw in me.