By: Steven Andrew Schultz

Love does not have prerequisites. Only the spiritual superheroes abide by this unconditional standard of loving. If you’re blessed to meet one, their light they left in you shines brighter the darker is gets around you. These sages are like the nightlights of our youth, where your little body was scared of the dark but that tiny light in the corner of the bedroom assuaged your fears enough to know, that somehow, as long as that light stayed on until you closed your eyes, you were protected from the monsters of your nightmares, and it was safe to sleep and dance with your dreams. As I sit in my empty classroom, the one the kind king only entered through the Zoom of a computer, my tears pour as I scroll through the very screen where our relationship existed and re-read every word he wrote that I can retrieve from Canvas.  

It’s been a dark week because one of the most brilliant people I’ve ever known has died. I don’t use the word genius haphazardly, but Gavin Geoffrey Monson was a genius. He was only seventeen years old and had just embarked on his senior year of high school. I met the man when he was a sophomore in my English Language Arts class. It was the first full year of covid lockdowns, and our school district set up a convoluted system where we were to teach students both in-person and online simultaneously. Each class averaged 3-6 live bodies in the room with thirty more on a zoom screen. Almost all their faces and voices I would never see or hear because in addition to this two-fold system, the school district also said teenagers didn’t have to show their face or participate.

This abyss of darkness I began to dread and came close to quitting teaching because it was such a miserable experience.  Go try talking to someone who has turned their back to you and see if you can continue talking for even a couple minutes. Now imagine you have a 90-minute class and 99% of the students are faceless, voiceless, black screens who don’t answer questions. I mean, try teaching and not even having non-verbal facial expressions to get feedback from to know if the audience is even connecting with you. This was the nightmare that politicians created but my saving grace was each class had a nightlight – those couple kids who turned their screens on or attended in-person and talked to me. Gavin was one of those nightlights who saved me from the darkness in more than just the literal sense.

You start thinking to yourself: why should I even care when they don’t? Why put effort into crafting a lesson when most are watching movies, playing video games, or literally not even in the room once they logged in? Is this even worth continuing? These are some of the questions that plagued me and many of my teaching peers during the Covid online learning era. And not only are you dealing with this dreaded experience of dark screens, but a political movement started across the country to vilify and attack teachers because somehow, we are evil and not doing enough? The teacher vilification has only intensified today to where we now have a national teacher shortage and these same political attackers who drove experts out of education have now dumbed-down the nation further by eliminating any need for a college degree to be hired as a teacher. But it would be those few nightlights that gave me my reason to continue. I remember often saying to myself: well, at least I’ll get to interact with Gavin today.

When reading novels over zoom and every time you call on some black screen to read, they type in the group chat “my microphone is broken” or don’t respond at all, so you keep reading yourself to an empty audience. But when Gavin was there, he was the lifejacket that kept me from drowning, and he had the most amazing reading voice. He would do different voices for each character, and he understood that punction meant pauses. I used to tell him he should join theater because he was so funny and had such strong stage presence. And when I tell you he was funny, I don’t mean class clown funny, but intelligent, high humor hilarious funny. Laughter that also makes you think and go: Wow! That was genius! That would become a regular thought after listening to Gavin talk or reading something Gavin wrote: Wow! That was genius!

So, on Monday, my first day back at school after missing two weeks after finally getting sick with Covid-19 after two years of escaping it, you can imagine the punch to my heart, when the school psychologist asked me to step outside my classroom at the start of third period. Class was actually being held in the cafeteria because my classroom had a rat inside it they hadn’t been able to trap yet. The class hadn’t seen me in two weeks, but they would have to wait while I momentarily went outside the door. In fourteen years of teaching, I never had the school psych pull me outside of class. When I got outside, she and one of our assistant principals were standing with this sullen look on their faces. I knew my mom, who lives in Michigan, had gone to the Emergency Room the night before after getting really sick with Covid and I feared they were about to break some tragic news to me about my mother.  

The first words she spoke: “One of your former students has died.” And then she said the name: Gavin Monson.

Gavin’s face immediately became clear in my head. I said, “Are you sure? Can’t someone go check on him?”  

She said, “It has been confirmed.”

“But, for sure he is dead? Can’t someone check on him? It can’t be Gavin. Are you sure?” Were the words that came out of me.

And then I just stood there, leaned my hand against the cafeteria wall to keep myself from falling down. And, for some reason, I just started telling random facts about Gavin to the psych and assistant principal. They nodded with compassion.

You never want any person to die, but Gavin was going to change the world, he had the light, and was a sweetheart soul who seemed so pure that his love was destined to deliver the world its smile. He had the light; how could it be out? He was someone I was certain was going to lead the world into a more loving practice. One of those names future students would study in History books. Gavin was Neo, the one to restore us from the Matrix of our materialistic, nihilistic society. I could not comprehend this news. How could the hero be dead before the story even got going? It would be like Luke Skywalker dying in the first 17 minutes of Star Wars.

Like I said before, Gavin was brilliant. He had one of the highest vocabularies of any student I ever had. Coupled with this profound depth of thought and immense empathy for the suffering of others, and a common thread in his writing was how he valued kindness and wanted to make the world a more loving place. And spending any amount of time with him, you knew he had the power to do it. I would later learn talking to other teachers who had him, that they too, saw the greatness and goodness in him and thought he would become a world-changer. Gavin was a once-in-a-generation skill set of wit, humor, charm, intelligence, creativity, speaking ability, and a heart big enough to fit the whole world. But when you love the whole world, the world can puncture a hole in your heart. In an unloving world, the most loving suffer the most. I knew Gavin was a Gold Medalist in love, I didn’t know he was suffering inside.    

After trying to process this soul shattering news, and continuing to tell them random things about Gavin, they respectfully gave their condolences and walked away to notify the next of Gavin’s former teachers on their list, and I had to walk back into a crowd of kids. I don’t know if there is any other job in the world other than maybe a doctor, where you’re told someone you love and cared for just died and then are expected to just go back on stage and entertain and enlighten a live audience of 40 teenagers and somehow still perform.

The class was loud, and I was silent. I just sat there, leaning against the cold steel of the buffet stand that usually is used to slide food trays across and I could only look down. No strength to keep my head up and make eye contact with any of those students. This was my second former student dead in the span of a year, and I didn’t know if I could handle this anymore. Before the start of last school year, I was at the funeral of beautiful Sophia who should have been starting her senior year; but instead, I was watching her being buried into the ground. I knew she was struggling with mental health for years; I knew nothing of Gavin’s, other than he mentioned how the cruelness and corruption of our culture and divisiveness of politics that cut up communities and divided families, distressed him gravely, but his mission was to make the world a more loving place. So, I sat there, in that cafeteria classroom, trying to speak but failing each time after uttering one word, twisting my thumbs, trying to compose myself. I just kept picturing this fallen king, someone who had given me so much light and I struggled to understand if he ever saw his own vibrant goodness.

A couple minutes ticked by, and the class became a library as they could tell something was not right with me. The student sitting directly in front of me, whom I have only known for a couple weeks, was the first face I saw. His name is also Gavin. I broke the news to the class that I was just told one of my former students had died. And then, somehow, managed to transition to the planned lesson for that day.

I would have to put my tears in storage to be accessed later. And later, I would cry for two reasons. Right before the start of 5^th period, two periods after I got the news of Gavin, my sister-in-law called me in tears to tell me my mom having covid was the least of her worries because my mom had been diagnosed with terminal, non-alcoholic liver disease and she wasn’t sure how much longer my mom had to live and was vomiting up blood. Somehow, I taught two more classes and then got home and opened up Canvas and started retrieving all of Gavin’s work from my class to print out and give to his brother. I came across two videos Gavin made, and the tears broke through like a decrepit dam giving way.

As I watched, I laughed, which made me cry even harder realizing what a precious present this world was never going to get to unwrap. I kept replaying the two videos, somehow keeping him alive, back on my computer screen, like how I knew him three years earlier. I wanted to bust through that screen, and hug him and hold him, protect him, and remind him how needed he was. I wanted to find a way to rewind time and go to him and retrieve him from this darkness and be the light for my nightlight. I just couldn’t fathom how someone who was so good, could be gone?

The next day some of Gavin’s classmates organized a vigil for him near the track where he used to run. There were a lot of students there. I didn’t know Gavin knew so many people. Gavin’s freshmen English teacher, Mrs. Patton, sent me a handwritten goal sheet Gavin made where he wrote by his senior year he wanted to become friends with everyone in the school. As I looked around as the crowd of people continued to expand, I thought goal accomplished. How could anyone not want to be this guys friend?

The next day I attended a School Board debate. I was in the crowd and so were some of my students because I offered extra credit for them to come watch democracy in action. As I was there, someone started chastising me and was really mean and nasty to me. I just wished the guy well and responded with kindness rather than in-kind. I was seated two seats next to this man who just berated me, and I just kept thinking of Gavin who wrote in detail how much our political landscape of mean tweets, name-calling, and cruel attacks on people damaged his heart. He didn’t understand the non-Christ-like behavior from people who claim to be Christians, and he wrote how all this divide really got him down. Gavin always talked about being kind to unkind people and so I stayed kind to the man next to me. I totally empathize with Gavin’s disgust and pain from people’s unloving behavior. Every time I think of him, I think of how I can be more loving and kind.

Today was his funeral. I sat in between Gavin’s junior and senior English teacher (He had the same teacher two years in a row – Mrs. Attreed, who adores him) and Alex’s (Gavin’s twin brother) senior English teacher, Mrs. Lawler – who loves Alex. I also taught Alex during my first ever Summer School teaching experience the summer directly after I taught Gavin. Mrs. Attreed asked how I was doing, and I said, “Throughout the week, at the most random times, I’ll picture Gavin’s face or think of something he wrote, and I’ll just start crying.” And as I said those words to her, I started crying and both Alex and Gavin’s teachers started hugging me.

Earlier in the week, late at night, something was nudging at me to return to the school and visit Gavin’s candle vigil that I attended earlier in the day. I’m not sure what good would be done from going back there, but I listened and drove over. Expecting no one to be there this late, I thought I’d just read what people wrote on his posters. To my surprise and blessing, a woman was there and said, “Aren’t you Mr. Schultz?” As a teacher and coach, you never know what kind of energy that’s going to come next when you are asked that. Is it some crazed parent mad about a bad grade or still furious their son spent the games on the bench?  But this was the face of an angel. It was Gavin’s aunt, Julie Carr, and his uncle, Jeff Carr. I taught their son, too. His name is Ethan and I had him the year Covid hit. Friday the 13^th in March of Ethan’s sophomore year was the last time Ethan and all his classmates would be in my classroom as we went into a two-week lockdown that would last months. During Ethan’s senior year when life returned to campus, Ethan would return to visit me often, even if it as just a quick hello. I guess goodness runs in the DNA of this family.

Ethan’s parents put him on facetime and we got to chat and we watched one of Gavin’s videos he made for my class. I told Ethan’s father about how Gavin saved me through the dreaded dark screen saga and how I probably wouldn’t still be teaching had I not had Gavin in my class. I told them some stories of Gavin and they shared too. Whatever that nudge was that told me to drive to the school, I’m so glad it came because Jeff and Julie had such good energy and were friendly and kind and absorbing their light and talking about Gavin together, and seeing Ethan again, made me feel not so lost and void of light.

At the funeral, Jeff Carr gave the most beautiful eulogy for Gavin. In the middle of his speech, Mr. Carr mentioned me and the story I shared with him how it was Gavin’s light that got me through the year. I started crying hard wishing I, or someone, could have been the light Gavin needed to get through his. And once again, both Alex and Gavin’s teachers wrapped their arms around me, and I just felt so bad that somebody so beautiful was gone so prematurely. I used to get this strange feeling like I was in the presence of a deity when Gavin was on the screen. When I say he had the light, I mean, he was so loving and sweet, he seemed to literally glow.

Way too many princes and princesses are not growing up to be kings and queens. When are we going to stop allowing our teenagers to become tombstones? Gavin was a prince that should have been king, but the cruelty of the culture killed him before he could be fitted for his crown. I guess someone with that big of a brain and a heart that huge, would hurt so much heavier than the rest of us. When your heart is strong enough to love the whole world, it can become wounded so severely that it wants to escape from the world. I know the feeling. I’ve wanted to exit too.

We didn’t deserve a heart as pure as Gavin’s and a mind as wise, but Gavin deserved a culture where kindness was king and where people valued values more than they do valuables. Gavin talked a lot about injustice, and he would often write about wanting to right what was wrong with a culture that divided families and cared more about material items than meaningful moments.

He wrote once that the one of the most important pieces of information of his life he got from his grandpa who told him, “There is nothing more important than being nice. It doesn’t matter if you have a great salary or a fast car. The only thing that truly matters is being kind.”

Gavin said that the meaning to life is “for you to be genuine and loving to everyone you meet. Be the light of the world and everyone will shine brighter. It doesn’t take much to create positivity. A simple, kind, email or a caring call can make all the difference in someone’s day. The demand for unexpected kindness is on the rise and it’s our job to step up and look out for each other.”

I found an email I sent to him. I wrote: “I hope you had a happy birthday, Gavin. You are legit an amazing talent. You did the best reading I’ve ever heard. But what you showed was confidence, care, creativity, and flair for performance. The artist is alive in you. Keep shinning your light and carry the fire. I hope you see you take a more dominant role in contributing to our class. You matter!”

Gavin thanked me for my kind words and said he was grateful. My last email to him was a year later (his junior year), on March 10 2:57pm, his last birthday. I simply wrote, “Happy birthday”

I wish I would have written more.

Gavin wrote back: “Thank you.”

Those two words were the final two words I would receive from Gavin. But it’s really me who should be thanking him. This is what I’m trying to do now by writing this tribute to him.

Each year I have my students create a Life Logo. A symbol that represents the core of who they are. What we call “magma” and then they create a values chart that are the guiding words of their choosing that will help them turn their magma into lava and leave the world a better place. Gavin created a logo of a smiley face with earth behind it. He said the world is missing its smile and his mission is to make as many people as he can smile.

Gavin wrote: “Life without love is life without meaning, so if you aren’t loving, you aren’t living. The best trade deal in the world is by being kind to others and watching them light up inside. My goal each week is to give 20 compliments. Sometimes when I reach it, I just double it. I want to have a superpower that makes the world a better place. Mine is being kind to everyone.”

One of my favorite movies is narrated by Tom Hanks and is called Radio Flyer. It about two brothers who are dealing with the tumult of the divorce of their parents. This movie came out in the early 1990’s when divorce became the new fad in American culture. Being a child of divorced parents myself, and being a big brother, and also always wanting to fly, the film resonated with me. It’s a sad but heart-warming tale of two brothers who bond together, with their dad gone and their mother away having to work a lot, they start building an airplane in their backyard.

Not to spoil the movie for you, but the brothers build their airplane, and Bobby, the little brother, flies away from home in his homemade airplane to escape the pain of the mean people and sends postcards back to his brother and mother of all the places he visits around the world spreading his smile by giving others theirs. I can see Gavin in his homemade airplane right now, with Jesus as his wingman, sending postcards of love back to Alex and mom and dad, step-parents, siblings, his grandma and grandpa he lived with, and his whole extended family, and the Blake family, who he also considered family.

Gavin once told me about and wrote about an airplane he and Alex were building in his backyard with the friend he looked up to the most, Logan Blake. Gavin is the only student I ever had that told me he was building his own airplane and the only student who I believed had the capacity to achieve flight. Gavin spoke about Logan in glowing terms. Logan is older and Gavin missed him terribly when he left for the military. When Gavin spoke of Logan, I had no idea who Logan was. A couple years later I would get the blessing of teaching Logan’s little brother, Bryce. I never made the connection until Bryce’s dad, Ritchie, just sent me an email showing the connection. Ritchie’s son Bryce was another nightlight, someone I started every day with. Bryce was first to the door of his class every morning and always said, “Good morning, Mr. Schultz. How are you?” And Bryce asked it in the rare way where he really cared to know the answer. I spent all last year suffering from a sleep disease where I was averaging one-two hours of sleep per night. Many mornings I could literally barely walk, but Bryce’s good morning was the spark I needed to do the best I could for those students of mine. These intertwined families of the Carr’s, Monson’s, and Blake’s produced some of the most genuinely kind and loving young men I have ever taught. I weep for the loss they must be grappling with.

In that movie Radio Flyer, where the brothers build an airplane out of a Radio Flyer red wagon, as joyous as it is that one brother takes flight, the other brother is left behind without ever seeing his beloved brother again. And as much as I want to honor Gavin, I must also lift up his brother Alex, whose grief and sorrow one cannot comprehend. I love Alex, too. And I love Ethan and I love Gavin. Ethan and Alex are still here, and we must do all we can to make sure they stay here and choose life, even when the pain seems insurmountable.  

God blessed me with both Monson twins. One I got to be transformed by through a computer screen, the other I got to meet in person over a short time in the summer. I had never taught summer school before, and I thought it would be an exciting experience having actual people in my classroom again. But what I didn’t consider was, it would be people who had been isolated at home for almost a year and half. They had lost all social skills, and most were silent. It felt like those dreaded zoom meetings where you say, “You’re on mute” but this summer they stayed quiet. One of the special ones was a kid named Alex, which at first I did not know was Gavin’s twin brother until he sent me an email asking is he could miss a week of class to go on a trip with his dad and brother and informed me he was Gavin’s twin.

The school has a strict absent policy for summer school students since each class is five hours long (each day being equivalent to a week of school) and if you miss more than three days the teacher can drop you. Alex emailed me asking if he could go on the family trip but would stay behind if it would cause him to get dropped. I told him I would protect him from the school dropping him and that family time is most important. I also wrote, “Tell Gavin I said hello please. He is terrific! I only wish I could have had him in-person. He is funny and creative, and a good-hearted dude.”

There would be one more trip the second semester of summer school and I let Alex go on that too. Which meant less time for me to get to bond with Alex but more time for Alex to be with his brother and dad, and I knew from Gavin’s writings how much he savored time with his dad. Looking back now. I am so grateful I chose to bend the rules to put a family first.

Today, after the funeral, as Ethan and I hugged, Alex came up to me and said, “I’m not sure if you remember me, but I had you in summer school.”

I pulled Alex in for a hug too and said, “Of course I remember you. You have the fire, just like your brother.”

To my surprise, Alex understood the reference and he proclaimed, “I read The Road!”

I said, “You read The Road? That’s a heavy book.”

Alex said, “Yes. After you talked about it in class I went and got it and read it.”

The Road by Cormac McCarthy is the first book I read that made me cry. I read it in college. The novel takes place in an America where civilization has totally collapsed due to either a nuclear war or environmental catastrophe. There is no light anywhere, just a constant fog of grey and dirt. Everyone has lost their morals, and many have even turned to cannibalism. There is a father and young son traveling down a road trying to get to the ocean in hopes some civilization might still be alive. In a world devoid of light and love, the father keeps telling his son they are on an important mission of “carrying the fire” down the road. The father is dying and doesn’t know how much longer he will be able to stay with his son. He sees his boy as the last resemblance of God. His son is still pure and innocent and only sees good in people and thus only wishes to do good to people. The father keeps telling his son they are the “good guys” and his son’s most important mission is to “carry the fire” and give the light (God’s love) to other good people when he finds them, so love can spread again in the world. The metaphor of “carrying the fire” represents the invisible light inside each of us that represents our Godly goodness, morals, and pure, childlike love. It’s like being a nightlight, something Gavin, Alex, Ethan, and Bryce all are.

The Road is a Pulitzer Prize winning book, a level of reading most adults cannot handle and Alex read it on his own, when he was fifteen because his summer school teacher he had for a few weeks mentioned it once and told the class to “carry the fire.” I was stunned. I guess genius and goodness run in the family. I thought of Star Wars when Luke learns he has a sibling who also is strong in “The Force.” I looked into Alex’s eyes, and here he was, now experiencing his real-life “Road” to walk without his brother and yet I could still see the fire (Godly goodness) in him. I handed him his brother’s writings and gave Ethan a copy of something Gavin wrote about him.

As I hugged Alex one more time, I realized as sad as I am Gavin is gone, Alex is still here and I want him to be here for a full lifespan. We all must do all we can so this young man can see the light in him, the genius in him, the goodness in him, that we all see. It made me think of the concept of funerals in our culture. Gavin must have had a thousand people in that church. I’ve always wished that part of our culture was funerals for the living. Instead of people coming from all over to speak about the dead, a day is picked and planned where people come from all over to speak about the living and tell them how important they are to them and all the ways they are loved and matter. Our lives matter most in the moments we let others know how much their lives matter. How much more loving of a world would we have, if this ritual was part of our ethos? How may lives would be elevated and saved if we attended the funerals for the living?  

There is something about those all-loving sages who light up the world, they seem to be blind to their own greatness. I want Gavin to know, and I want Alex to know, they each have the light. What’s most valuable is invisible. The ones with the light see to it that love is seen by carrying the fire to illuminate others. I think back to what Gavin wrote, “The best trade deal in the world is by being kind to others and watching them light up inside.  I want to have a superpower that makes the world a better place. Mine is being kind to everyone.”

Well, Gavin is a superhero in my eyes. He was a kind king. One who didn’t need superpowers to fly because be built his own airplane. I see him up there, flying around, giving out his twenty compliments, using his potato launcher to knock down any bad guys, asking those poignant questions, and telling those stories, delivering them in a way only he can, that makes you laugh and think. I just wish I could log on one more time and see his smile on my screen. How could it be that someone who changed my life by turning his light on when most around him kept their screens dark, ended up logging off too? Maybe that’s the perfect metaphor of our current culture, a zoom room full of dark, muted, apathetic screens, and after a while, when you see so much darkness in the world, your wonder if keeping your one little light on even makes a difference and so you turn your light off. I know I’ve thought it. But I also know one little light can make a difference because I met Gavin Monson.  

Gavin wrote once about if he could get one more day with someone he loved who was gone, what that perfect day would be like. He mentioned it would be just being in the moment with people he loved. He referenced the movie Ferris Bueller, and described a type of day like that where he and his brother and Logan are all hanging out again, cruising around, eating good food, completing their airplane and taking off. I wish I could get another day with Gavin and convince him to stay and show him how so many more days like that would be possible in his future.   

Even though I never got to hug Gavin, I hope Alex and I have more hugs in our future and we can discuss more books we’ve read or just listen to what’s in his mind or on his heart. As great as Gavin was, Alex and Ethan are great too. Maybe one day we will build something together, maybe a multiple seat airplane and leave a seat open for Gavin, or cruise down the road, or even if I never see them again, I want them to know I’m here if they need it and will be rooting for them as they walk their road, carrying the fire I’ve always seen in them and I hope they can see in themselves.

Before I left the funeral, I tapped Ethan and Alex on their hearts with my hand and said goodbye. I wrote once about a fictional world where instead of handshakes people literally touch their heart with their hand and then touch your heart when saying hello or goodbye. It’s a sign of respect and a reminder that even though we don’t all share the same type of blood, all our blood comes from the same all-loving God and so we must love all. As Gavin said, “We must make it the goal to love everyone.”

In that same fictional world I created, when people put their hand to their heart and then touch yours, a literal piece of their heart gets fused with yours and heals any emotional wound you’re suffering with. Every time you give someone else a piece of your heart, their heart regenerates and yours grows back bigger. So, each time you give your heart away, you’re able to give more of your heart away tomorrow to more people because your capacity to love increases every time you show love. I wish that fictional world was real so Gavin would still be here, but I do know that a piece of Gavin’s heart is fused with mine and he made my heart grow bigger. I know this because mine hurts so much right now.

Just a few weeks ago a student asked me what I think happens when we die. I asked him if he had ever been on a walk before in the woods and explained when someone walks ahead of you on the trail, the further ahead they get, the harder it becomes to see them, and eventually the sight of their body vanishes and all you can see are the trees and their footprints on the trail. I think life and death are like that. A transfer of energy. After some time, you won’t even be able to see the imprint of the sole of their shoes on the trail, but their soul becomes part of the soil and we live on everywhere our love was given. We are really everlasting Love being housed in temporary bodies. The breadth of our love continues after our last breath. I used to have a poem called Lamplighter written in chalk on the brick wall in my old classroom that read:

“He has taken his bright candle and is gone into another room I cannot find,

But anyone can still see him, by all the little lights he left behind.”

I can still see Gavin.

I then asked the student, have you ever been to a play before? And he said, “yes.”

I asked, “What happens at the end of the play? He said, “They all come back on stage and people clap.”

I said, “That is what I think after death is like. Every person that played a role in our life joins us on stage, and we grab each other’s hands, take a bow, and receive perpetual applause. Even the villains of the play get applause because they showed the heroes how to discover their goodness in the face of bad; how to do right by those who did them wrong.”

My student smiled and said, ‘That’s deep. I like that.”

So, take your bow, Gavin, because we are all applauding for all the good you did in our lives. All your family and friends will hold your hand again and join you on the stage you’re currently holding the hand of Jesus. Gavin once wrote, “Whatever happens after death, I know I will be at peace because I kept choosing to be kind.”    

At night, as the light of stars streak across the sky, I’ll picture Gavin, in his homemade airplane, soaring through heaven, praying for the same thing he yearned for while on Earth: that we would be more kind, generous, and loving. 

Gavin once said he wants to be a superhero and his superpower is kindness. The kind king, who was my superhero, flew into my heart in a plane he made in the backyard of the friend he looked up to…and now, I’m left, looking up and applauding. Even though I randomly start crying when I picture his face, I’ll make sure there is still a smile on mine, because that is Gavin’s legacy, his lava. We are all closer to touching heaven because of the layer of love he left, elevating us all. 

It’s now 6:37AM Sunday morning and I started writing this ode to Gavin yesterday night. Gavin once told me how exciting it was when you’re so engrossed in the moment creating something, that you stay up all night and don’t sleep until the next day. Well, I followed your lead and built all the way into a new day with a new creation. I didn’t build a plane, but I hope this prose flies into the hearts of people and reminds them to love everyone more, so we can reach your goal of showing the world how to smile.

As I click save on this word document, I think how Gavin saved my career. I seriously think if it wasn’t for him and the other few nightlights, I would have let the darkness defeat me. A day after Gavin’s death, a former student visited me and told me he was having mad mental health issues lately but started putting the lessons from my class into play and it saved his life. The second day after Gavin’s death, a former student emailed me and wanted me to know that last year she was suicidal, but the lessons from my class saved her life and she wanted to thank me. Neither of those two students would have met me had I not met Gavin Monson. His light guided me through the darkest road of my professional life and his light also guided those two students back to life. When you give your light to someone you don’t just elevate one, you elevate everyone that person elevates too. Both those students who said they were saved from my class were in my class the year after Gavin was in mine. I wish Gavin was still here, but his impact is immortal, and he lives everywhere his light shines.

Love withheld perishes, but love given remains. Gavin remains.

Our body is ephemeral, but our impact can be immortal. Gavin has reached immortality. As I am about to shut this computer down and turn off the lights, I know the nightlight in the hallway will automatically turn on when I do. From now on, I’ll always think of Gavin, our nightlight, whose love has defeated death, and when I talk to God about the gift He gave me in meeting a kind king who flew his own plane, his twin brother Alex, cousin Ethan, best friend’s younger brother Bryce, I will tell God the final words Gavin Monson ever said to me: Thank You. 

Steve Andrew Schultz

LeadLoveElevate.com

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Going by the pen name of Regina Phalange on Boredpanda.com even has all 99 Magna Doodle messages on display for those diehard Friends fans that are curious. But, in my freshmen English class at Fountain Valley High School, there is only one Magna Doodle message that matters to me, and it was written by a one student of mine to another. 

A few months before this magic Magna Doodle moment took place, I had told my students they weren’t allowed to draw on mine anymore after there was an incident where the comedian of the class, Harrison, had drawn this beautiful looking forest, except one of the trees wasn’t a tree, but a giant male body part. As I breached the huddle of hyenas surrounding Mr. van Gogh’s desk, he looked up to me in embarrassment as the whole class hushed to see how I would react. As is with the thousands of tiny decisions teachers have to make weekly, I had less than a second to decide if I would scorn him or show him a new vision for his life. 

As I took in this stunning landscape Harrison had drawn on my prop from Friends, I was moved by how refined it looked, minus his anatomy tree. As the class held their breath, I complimented Harrison and told him that he was an artist. I said he had the rare ability to always make the class laugh with his quick wit and charm, and that one day I knew I would see him on stage either performing standup, acting, or presenting his drawings. Then I mentioned how as an artist, he also has a responsibility to know his audience and venue and since the Magna Doodle was my property and not his, he should have asked permission to use it and not draw anything that would be inappropriate for the class. He nodded and looked relieved I didn’t shame him but also I could see a new sparkle in his eye as he began to download the software of artist I just gave to him in front of all his peers.

That night I went out and bought him his own Magna Doodle and the next day had a one-on-one talk about proper behavior in a class and he assured me it would never happen again and then I gave him the gift and told him it was a gift having him in my class and encouraged him to keep drawing and do what all artists do: add more beauty to society by showing us what was once only visible to them and the muses. On my birthday, Harrison gave me his Razor scooter, and thanked me for showing him a better a better way and on the Magna Doodle I gave him he wrote three words: I love you. 

No one messed with the Magna Doodle after Harrison’s infamous tree until a few months later when the freshmen quarterback got up out of his seat in the middle of a girl giving a speech, grabbed it off my table, took it back to his desk, and started doodling on it. Now, giving a speech is the number one fear in the world and we have strict guidelines that no one is to do anything that distracts a speaker or make fun of them in any way. Doing so will be an automatic F for them. Now, Lucas is not the type of kid to be mean or rude, and so I let it play out before I said anything to him for doing this in the middle of his classmate’s presentation.

It was a speech that wasn’t going well. She was struggling and the whole class could feel the awkwardness. A few seconds later, Lucas holds up my Magna Doodle and flashes it so she could see it. Lucas sat in the front row and so only the speaker and myself could see what was written on it. Suddenly, this girl who was drowning, started walking on water. A smile appeared in her face, an enthusiasm overcome her cadence, and when she finished there was pride in her eyes and joy beaming in my heart. 

Lucas had risked breaking protocol and getting an F to be a wingman for a student who was struggling. In both cases, with Harrison and Lucas, I knew their hearts and so I didn’t act harshly, as some teachers too tied up in rules instead of relationships might have done. The sad truth is, Lucas is a quarterback and most of his high school “success” will be judged by the touchdowns he completes or the passes he doesn’t, but one of his greatest victories was only meant for one…one girl who was dying on stage and Lucas gave her CPR by daring to doodle.

We have two main maxims in my class: Your Words Create Your World. And: Would You Gold Medal in the Love You Gave Away Today? On that day, Lucas’ words made that girl’s world and mine better. An unlike Friends that has 99 different doodles, in my class, hanging on the wall, there will forever only be one. Six words, written by a Gold Medalist in Love, six words that are a greater victory than anything in any endzone, six words we all should be telling ourselves and each other more often, six words that created a new friend by giving a struggling girl her smile: You are doing great…Keep going!

Steve Andrew Schultz

LeadLoveElevate.com

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Steve Andrew Schultz

LeadLoveElevate.com

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Steve Andrew Schultz

LeadLoveElevate.com

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Steve Andrew Schultz

LeadLoveElevate.com

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