Moving On

The house down the street where my friend used to live, the tidy grey house with white trim, with the white wicker chairs on the front porch and the aqua van in the driveway, has changed. Yes, the house is still grey with white trim. But the van and the white wicker chairs that made it Tim's house are gone, in fact, have been gone for a few weeks now, yet another indication that my friend Tim has moved on.

But the high school is where I most often saw my friend, either in the auditorium, or in his office on the main hallway of the administration building, right across from the auditorium, right in the middle of everything. And I have not yet been back to the high school since it opened its doors to students for the fall semester.

I did check out the high school's website. I have checked it once a week for several weeks now. Since school began a week ago, they finally added the name of the new drama teacher....and Tim's name is no longer listed.

But somehow I don't think it will really hit home until I walk into the administration building, and down the long hall, to the Drama office, and see another teacher in the place that for so long belonged to Tim. He had quite a few "offices" in different places over the 20-something years he was a Drama teacher at Fremont, usually due to one renovation or another. But he always dragged his old oak desk with him, no matter where they moved his office. And now, that old oak desk will be occupied by another drama teacher, and it won't be Tim.

It won't feel right and I won't like it one bit. But I will have to get used to it. I will have to get used to it because Tim has moved on, and I am still here, as are all the teenagers still passing through the doors of Fremont High School.