Updated: Monday, Aug. 4, 1997 at 23:14 CDT Theresa Neil was a teacher to many of us
By Dave Lieber Star-Telegram staff writer
The teacher began with a dramatic touch. On a cold winter day last February, she read to 80 teen-agers a tender children's story, Love You Forever, about the cycles of life and death in a family.
In the story, a mother sings a song to her baby, and she keeps singing the same song throughout his life:
I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
As long as I'm living
My baby you'll be.
In the end, though, the mother becomes too sick to finish the song. So the grown-up son sings it to his mother. Then he goes home to his baby daughter and sings her the same song.
There was nothing chilly about the way Theresa Neil's lesson of living and dying was received that wintry day by students at Fort Worth's North Side High School.
Great teacher that she was, within the first few minutes of her hourlong talk to students who wanted to become doctors and nurses, the Glenview Elementary School teacher quickly won not only their attention, but their admiration.
When Neil finished reading, there were loud sighs from the students. And some tears, too. It's somehow strange to see high-schoolers cry unashamedly at school. But when Neil began telling her own story and how it related to the children's tale, there were more tears.
She told the students about the cancer diagnosis and how doctors had said that she would live only a few weeks. But that was months ago, she said happily, and now she was excited to spend an hour with them on a day away from her teaching job during winter break.
"We're all going to die, folks," she said. "You're terminal!" she pointed at one student. "You're terminal!" she pointed at another. "You're terminal, too.
"But the only measure of our worth on earth is the love we leave behind. I could die in the next five minutes. The important thing is, how do you want to spend your time today?"
Neil, who died Saturday after the cancer finally took over, left much love behind. She is survived by a devoted family, caring friends and hundreds of students who were blessed with her as their teacher.
She also left behind the respect of countless readers who came to know her through a series of unforgettable stories and photographs in this newspaper through which Neil selflessly shared her final months.
But on that cold winter morning six months ago, Neil explained her life philosophy to those city kids in terms they could understand.
"I've been given this bum rap," she said. Her goal was to help them -- and all of us -- appreciate what we take for granted.
"I've enjoyed the big stuff," she said. "I've been in love. I've had children, and I have the greatest job in the world. Cancer can't steal my spirit."
Then she read to the high-schoolers again -- this time from something she had written, "My List of Things That Make Me Feel Good."
Children's laughter.
Puppy breath.
Coffee.
Cotton.
Birds singing.
Chubby cheeks.
The hymn Amazing Grace.
Warm bath water.
Eagles soaring.
Girlfriends.
White roses.
Horses.
Fresh air.
Singing loud in the shower.
Who among us doesn't take these gifts of life for granted?
Who among us doesn't think we'll live forever? Or that we'll always love forever?
These students were older than her huggable fifth-graders, wiser in life than the elementary school students she taught throughout her career. But their easy laughter and gentle tears made it clear that Neil's message had been absorbed.
"When things get really tough, it's making connections with people that keeps us going," she said.
And her best advice?
"Don't ever be the first to give up a hug."
How simple, how true.
"A teacher affects eternity," American historian Henry Adams said. "He can never tell where his influence stops."
Neil's lessons about life extend far beyond the walls of her fifth-grade class in Richland Hills. She brings to mind one of the best-known characters in American literature -- Emily in Thornton Wilder's play Our Town, who died and then said:
"Oh, Earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? Every, every minute?"
Theresa Neil understood.
She was a teacher who saw the symbolism of life in things as simple as hugs, horses and tender children's stories.
She was a gift to us all, and if we can somehow remember her lessons, she'll never truly be gone.
Dave Lieber's Northeast Beat column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays in the Star-Telegram.
� 1997 Fort Worth Star-Telegram