Dear Lynn

First, let me reassure you that this is not another request for a letter. The last time I wrote you, to check in on you, my ulterior motive was to get another letter from you. I have been coasting off your letters for years and, though I have never actually read them, I know they have frequently made the difference in my acceptance to schools or my being hired. I have been told this on more than one occasion. But, no, I'm not asking for a letter.

Nor is this another attempt to see how you are doing. I know now that even when you did tell me how you were doing, you were often disguising the true extent of your pain or discomfort, putting up a brave face, and confronting the world on your own terms, as I've always known you to do. The only difference this time is that the world bit back, and the world now looks petty in comparison to your dignity and courage.

I know you would pretend to resist this exercise in sentiment, though it was never hard to see that you were really rather a soft touch. But for us, your students, you would often hide your smiles, tempering your passions into lesson plans, group activities, rhetorical devices. It took me a while to figure out that you were loving every minute of those workshops, those basement rooms full of enthusiastic but petrified graduate students who looked to you to show them the way. And you never failed us, even the ones like me who came into your orbit full of cynical self-congratulatory smugness, willing to teach anything as long as it helped cover tuition, but not really invested in teaching.

That attitude of mine lasted about a week, as I recall. By then, you had won me over. You had won all of us over, and our highest goal was then to earn your trust and respect and love. In fact, you won me over so completely that I stayed, years past my sell date, so that I could stay near you, watch you coach last year's top students into assistant directors, watch your eyes light up when you talked about the new grad students, hear you vehemently defend our interests and offices to the higher echelons of the department or the university.

And then, as you became a friend and colleague, instead of my teacher (though you will always be my teacher), I stayed for the pig parties, for the glint of amusement in your eye as I presented another provocative invitation to the new grad students, for the feelings of contentment and safety I felt in your backyard, roasting another swine and watching the celebratory antics of those who knew what the new grad students would be in for during the next few months.

We all loved you, and we all claimed, amongst ourselves, to have your special approval, like clumsy bishops seeking the hand of the Pope. I know I was your favorite because you gave me Star Trek toys as surprise gifts, because we got tattooed on the same day, because you kept allowing me to reapply for the AD position. And you knew you were my favorite because I let you do things that convinced the others that they were your favorites, when I knew all along that it was me, that it could only be me. You made us all feel like that.

And because we shared an academically illicit love for things like the Trek universe, I know you will appreciate here an allusion to the episode where Picard is reunited with his beloved professor from Starfleet Academy. The professor has information about an exciting archeological find, something that might change the way the peoples of the galaxy think about their origins and common ancestors. But Picard has other obligations, and he turns down his professor. As much as it pains him to do so, he now has larger responsibilities, and cannot relinquish his command to follow his professor on what ends up becoming that professor's final journey.

I am no Picard. Professionally speaking, I am hardly even a Riker. But I can't follow you anymore, much as I might like to learn what you may be learning now. Riker was afraid of the Big Chair, and there was no bigger chair than the one behind your desk, which you piloted as gracefully and commandingly as if it were a ship. I would follow you anywhere, but I would never dare sit in that chair.

There are many moments, but here is one: On the day I received notification of my funding for PhD studies, you were the first person I told. I wasn't sure if I had actually been accepted, but as soon as I showed you the notice, you leaped from that chair and yelled. Then you grabbed me and we ran to Christine's office and the three of us stood together in the hallway and you laughed and cheered. I remember that as one of the happiest days of my life, not necessarily because I had any idea of what I was getting into, but because I had made you happy and proud and I had paid you back, in some fashion, for the hours and months and years you had invested in a know-it-all grad student who wanted nothing to do with teaching.

This year marks my tenth of doing just that. I would not be doing what I do now without you. I would not be the same person without you. I would not have come to meet many of my most beloved friends without you. You have shaped my life, and the lives of dozens, maybe hundreds, of others, and we are spread out across the country, seeking your approval.

I recently told someone that I never walked into a class without thinking of you, but that's not entirely true. Like you, I hide things. But I never walk out of a class without thinking of you and how you might have done it better or, rather, shown me how to do it better. And you showed me, and Patrick, and Lynne, and Robin, and all of us.

More important than anything you taught me was that you trusted me. You threw a load at me to see what I could do with it, never expressing the slightest doubt that I would handle it, and handle it brilliantly. I don't know, really, how I handled it, but you never made me feel like I couldn't or was unworthy of bearing it.

And now you have thrown us another load, an unbearable load, with the same confidence and trust and hidden joy that you had in us from the beginning. And, again, we can only hope to be worthy of it. Worthy of you and all the time you invested in us.

Thank you, Lynn. Thank you and goodbye. I love you.