Among the Scholars

One of my favorite introverts, my friend, my mentor, my inspiration, my Dr. McCambridge, passed away several months ago. I've been wanting to write a post about him for a long time, and I knew how I wanted to end the post, but I did not know how to start. Where do you start with anecdotes about a twenty-year friendship?

When I called for advice, twisting my finger on the phone cord, an anxious grad student holed up in my childhood bedroom like a teenager?

When I prepared to serve him a cup of coffee in my first apartment and he recognized the sound of the hand-me-down Corelle dishes (you know the ones, with those  stylized flowers--you could get blue, green, or gold; my mom's had been gold)?

When I called from that same apartment to tell him I'd discovered, on one of the three channels I received over the TV antenna, That Seventies Show? I couldn't have articulated then that I wanted him to watch it because we were both Red-and-Kitty types living in a Donna-and-Eric world; at the time, I just said, "It explains everything."

When Masters Degree #2 was complete and I hated my one and only non-teaching job, declaring, "Well, it turns out that the only thing worse than working with kids is working with adults"?

When I was engaged and called to ask, "What if I become one of those horrible happy people and we can't be friends any more?"

When my toddler daughter, Victoria, to whom he referred as "Herself, the Empress of India," ransacked his living room and office with the dog named Esme--a literary name, from Salinger, but brought back into vogue, I'm convinced, by Daniel Handler in the Lemony Snicket books? "It's 'A Series of Unfortunate Events,' I had explained." "Well, that could be the title of my biography," he had wryly replied.

Or do I fast-forward to when I finally got to go to Oxford this summer but it was too late for any more phone calls or cups of coffee? When the recorded audio tour told me that the entrance to one of the buildings bore an inscription in Greek that referred to Luke 2:46, when the child Jesus' worried parents found him studying with the elders? How I stood there, the Walk-Man-eque audio device hanging from my neck, the touristy apparatus ridiculously incongruous with the tears in my eyes? How I heard nothing else after the British robot-voice said, "They found Him among the scholars"?

Maybe I should just say that I hope his part of heaven looks just like Oxford, and that, if I ever get to heaven someday, I'll look for him among the scholars.