When you're gone
When I took a phone call before class on Monday morning, I wasn’t ready for what I heard. I wasn’t expecting to hear that the community college instructor who had lectured my wellness class about America’s biggest killer—heart disease—had been its latest victim. That the middle-aged guy who pounded miles away on a YMCA elliptical machine faster and farther than I ever could every morning had suffered a fatal heart attack. That when I go home for spring break next week, he won’t be shooting me a grin and a “How’s college?” when I walk into the weight room. Apparently, death is inevitable and answers to no one. Not even those who do their best to escape it. Mr. Bill McBride was one of the most inspiring people I ever met. I didn’t know him well, yet he infected me with positivity every time I saw him. As a junior in high school I started taking college classes. For a socially awkward, unathletic introvert, PE 1201 was one of the most terrifying highlights of my first year at ...