I've been so lucky that I've had 2 careers: one as a Spanish university professor for 17  years from 1983-2000 and one for 10 years as a hospital chaplain 2000-2010.  Now I'm retiring from my third one of 10 years combining the two teaching Spanish and death and dying classes to nursing students at a community college.

Back in 1992 the dean at my university contacted me.  There was a student I'll call "Tom" (not his real name) and he was on the verge of kicking Tom out for bad behavior.  Nothing terrible, just an excess of partying, drinking, obnoxious behavior, neglecting class and studies, basically being a pain in the neck.  The dean wanted to know if I'd take Tom on as his adviser as a last chance to see if the kid could straighten himself out.

I agreed, of course, and Tom and I met.  I don't recall doing anything special, nor laying down the law or anything.  I just remember telling him where things stood and that this was it, his university career was on the line.  He'd have to make his mind up as to what he wanted in life and set his sights on whatever that might be.  If it was leaving college to do manual work, that would be plenty honorable, it was just time to take responsibility.

Tom totally shaped up, all thanks to him not me, and graduated with honors.  At his graduation ceremony his mom wept thanking me, though I told her it was really all him.  As a reward, I gave him a vote of confidence by writing him a letter of recommendation for graduate school where I myself had studied.  He did well there, too, and lo and behold he became a Spanish professor like me.  He still is one now.

What I'm grateful for is not only this little success story from teaching long ago, but for the fact that Tom keeps in touch with me as his father figure.  That's kind of funny, because I'm twice divorced and yet I never had children.  So I'm an old solitary bachelor now in my own eyes, but not in Tom's.  Yesterday for Christmas he had a one hour long Zoom chat with me from halfway across the country. 

He wanted me to know how his kids are doing, as if they were my own grandchildren, and how his wife was doing at work during this pandemic we're in.  He wanted to tell me he'd managed to scrape together enough money to swing a loan to get a new roof put on his house.  He just wanted to tell me all that he was doing for his family in a way that a son would be accountable to a beloved father.

Since we met in 1992 and I did my bit to get him through university, I've been waiting for Tom's interest in me to fade away.  After all, my own father never was that interested in me, and I haven't heard from him now for 10 years since 2010.  What I learned from my own bipolar missionary evangelist dad was bad.  We were on the run half of the time because he eventually got caught by the cops and his church board and deported and defrocked for committing fraud with church finances.  That's how I got PTSD and ended up here.  But here it is 2020, 28 years later, and Tom never stops checking in with me like I'm some father figure to him.  

It's amazing.  The longest of the two marriages lasted 10 years, the longest relationship I'd ever had before.  This is almost 3 times as long, and Tom is showing no sign of fading away.  I'm really grateful.  What a Christmas present his Zoom meeting with me was.