“The Greeks said you can never step into the same river twice.” -Mr. Homer
Most of my childhood took place on a gravel playground near the Bogue Falaya River; then pine-canopied brick buildings off a highway. My childhood was my family, the animals, my friends, my teachers….and Mr. Homer. I have no childhood memory that is not tinged by his presence: mowing the lawn as the sun began to set; lifting backpacks for tiny hands; chewing on the ends of his glasses. To us, he was Socrates. He was Caesar. He was Shakespeare.
When I was small, I toted my books everywhere I went: poring over the lives of queens, of saints, of poets. I sat on the playground, listening to a fountain buried under ivy, and drifted far away from the Louisiana heat. I didn’t think anyone noticed. Mr. Homer did. As I got older, I realized that he always protected that space for me. He wanted me to read. He wanted me to dream. Even at age 30, the last time I saw him, he reminded me of this. He slipped books like “The Grapes of Wrath” into my hands. “What do you think?” he’d ask, waiting for my answer. Me, a ten-year-old. He listened intently as I talked about turtles and Ma Joad.
Ages four through fourteen, when I was a student at CES, I watched him listen. He listened as the smallest Kindergartner told him about their art project. He listened as a pre-adolescent boy, hurt and confused, lashed out in rage. I watched Mr. Homer kneel in front of crying students: gripping their hands and soothing them with a gentle ferocity. The look of relief when they realized that someone was seeing them, truly seeing them, in their moment of pain. Sometimes, with my own students, I hear my voice slip into that same register. Greg Homer taught me how to be present. How to stay present.
So many stories, spun from year to year. “Do you remember how we would call his mom for her birthday during class? Do you remember how he got upset and broke the rocking chair? Do you remember when…?” Just the other day, weaving around our kitchen, Bryant and I screamed, “1215…limits on the King!” This was how Mr. Homer taught us to remember the date of the signing of the Magna Carta.
Recently, I watched the recording of our 7th grade graduation from CES. We were thirteen-years-old. We were already a class united by grief and by hope. Mr. Homer stands in front of us. He refers to us as “the river of life behind him, ready to rush out those doors.” I think of him as the unmovable boulder in the river’s channel, crusted with lichen. As we rushed through those doors, into the rest of our lives, our current passed around him. Each droplet of water touched by his presence.
In the recording, he goes on to say that we don’t know where the river comes from; we don’t know where the river goes. And if anyone has the answer…he doesn’t want to hear it. He doesn’t say it with vehemence. He wants to remain open to the mystery.
This weekend, there is a memorial for Mr. Homer on the banks of the Bogue Falaya. I imagine all of us there, watching as the water disappears around the bend. Watching as it passes beneath our feet and the roots of the water oaks. Not the same river, just as the Greeks said. A new river, unending and eternal.
Thank you, Mr. Homer. Thank you for your watchfulness, your care, your kindness, your solidity. You are the river, unending and eternal.
