An angel in America

After a weekend spent at the cinema, partying and complaining about people who leave poor tips, every now and then a bit of news will spring upon you that alters your perspective not only on the present but the past as well. \nI was a student in a seminar last semester that explored modern political drama, taught by a man whose zest for the arts and devotion to meaningful expression could only be categorized as nothing less than contagious. Professor Timothy Wiles often pushed the limits of propriety and dramatic theory in class, if anything so as to show us how the arts have no boundaries and that anything, even real solutions within the political realm, could be accomplished through imaginative thinking with the use of that microscope to the guts of life known as the dramatic play.\nUnfortunately, Prof. Timothy Wiles is no longer with us today, a victim of a serious illness, depression -- one that doesn't have the advantage of manifesting itself physically upon the body. Rather, it devours its host by means of the mind, the organ with which he made his living and taught many students to expand exponentially.\nThe scar, the tumor, the physical wound almost seem evolutionarily advantageous in that they signal to outsiders that an individual is in great need of help. However, when I was a student of Wiles', I saw no blood stains on his collar. In fact, it was he who was there to aid me in my hour of need. \nOn multiple occasions, he counseled me during a stressful time when it seemed I was the root of many people's anger. He spoke openly on my behalf in those sessions, easing my pain, and even taking a public stance in class to show his support for me as a student and a friend. He guided me through the construction of a play I was writing at the time, supported my extracurricular activities and gave selflessly so that I might benefit from opportunities others might have missed. How I took for granted these grand gestures when I knew not that my worries were but a fraction of the demons he had been battling with all of his life.\nHis honesty, his willingness to confront tough issues and to freely muse intellectually in class made me feel that this was a man who was happy with his station. He showed me pictures of his wife and son and spoke to me of trips he had planned to embark upon and the stories of the many plays he had seen. \nI failed to let him know that more than a teacher, to me and to anyone else, he mattered.\nYou matter.\nIt's a concept I've written about before, given to me by one of my wisest of friends. It's what I feel our primary obligation to our fellow human beings amounts to; the ultimate failsafe. Where we can offer advice, medicine, gifts, poems and songs, none of these enables those around us to the extent that we let them know they matter.\nIt's not about us.\nIt's about others.\nOften, to treat depression or any ailment that others might have, we approach them from the standpoint of the healthy, the wise or the learned. Rarely do we approach them from the standpoint of equals, or better yet, dependents. Americans today pride their lone-wolf status, but I think that though we might not need others, we need to be needed by them. \nThis is an everyday practice, to friends, professors, parking officers and lovers alike. To learn to help not from above, but from below, that is to let them know they matter.\nThat they are needed. \nThat they are loved.\nProfessor Timothy Wiles still matters. Don't let him forget that.