Tribute to a Fellow Sojourner
Marco came into my life when I needed him most. Life’s like that sometimes. I had just landed my first teaching job. In. the. South. Bronx.
It was where I wanted to be, and it was every bit as tough as you can imagine, and then some. I rarely tell my teaching stories from those days, because they are conversation stoppers. They can’t be topped, and it can make listeners feel like they can never complain again.
Marco was a Teach for America chap and the technology teacher in a school known as the worst school in the worst district in all of New York City. I taught second grade, though I learned more about people, teaching and life in those years than I was capable of imparting.
Somewhere during that year, Marco and I realized that we both lived in Queens and so began a year of commuting home each night together.
My Ford Escort, which I had driven across country hadn’t given out on me yet, so Marco would catch a ride home---and we would begin our arguments.
Our arguments were great fun. We used logic and scripture and life experience. Often, we would jump into an AOL chatroom when we got home, and continue the debate for another hour from our separate apartments. The internet was brand new and our arguments awoken something in both of us. Marco would say it was a spiritual awakening for him, but for me, it was the kind of intellectual challenge I had in Bible College, debating fellow classmates on the finer points of theology, while Brother Ken, our dean and hero, sat back and chuckled, thoroughly enjoying the struggle of watching caterpillars push against the chrysalis.
Marco was an agnostic, and I a Christian. I would share the gospel with him and he would try to convince me of his points. In the in-between times we lived life, teaching and containing our charges.
One of my best memories of Marco is the time he and I and, Bernard (the art teacher) took one of my kids to a Yankees game. Lamont was an angry little guy, and one in need of great love. I hope my student still remembers how 3 of his teachers took time, and chose HIM to hang out with at a Bronx Bombers game. I hope he remembers how much we liked him, and how much hope we had for him.
It would take much longer than I can write here to say who Marco was, and what he meant to me. His friendship brought life to me in the midst of the hardest job I’ll ever have. He was a fellow warrior in a wasteland, the kind of comrade who understands your battle scars, because he bears his own. But if he were here? He’d tell me that’s corny, and to stop being so dramatic. That he was just an asshole like everybody else. And then we’d laugh and eat salted mangoes, and make each other watch thought-provoking movies and argue about their meaning.
Deep met deep that year and the year which followed, and today I miss Marco’s deepness. There are friendships which you cultivate and tend to and hope to God they’ll eventually bear fruit. And there are others you just fall into, and which meet deep places in your soul you never knew even existed inside.
Today I honor Marco Polo Villegas, and today I'm grateful to God for the friendships He has surprised me with and sustained me with when I've been oh so thirsty.
