I just talked with my grandma about a class reunion the other day and how I wouldn’t go because the only good thing about high school was my form master. I had several conversations planned out in my head for when he would ask if I’d go to the reunion, just trying to find a way to not disappoint him and in every scenario I imagined he would understand if I told him why I couldn’t do it.

The first thing in high school we had was this week-long camp where we were supposed to gel with our classmates and build a base to go on when we would start school. Immediately on the first night I became sick and he had to rush me to the emergency and he gave me a red bucket to throw up in and we joked cause my PJ’s were red too, and we were listening to Johnny Cash in the car.

When I had my spine surgeries in 2008 and I went back to school in 2009 he was so helpful and said he would help me with anything I needed and my getting better was the most important thing. I’m actually convinced he told my other teachers to go easy on me because they never called on me to give a presentation, they let me be during class participations, it was almost ridiculous. 

When my classmates bullied my then-best friend into changing schools and she and I went to him to tell him my friend would leave school he turned to me and said “are you leaving too?” cause he knew she was my only friend and I said I didn’t know and he said he would fail as a teacher if he let me leave too, so I never left. I wanted to change classes too, you know we had class A and class B and there were some guys in class B I got along with okay but changing classes would’ve meant BB would no longer be my form master.

If I ever partook in any community event it was because of him, because he was awesome and I didn’t want to let him down. When he was asked (because he was an English language teacher) which student of his spoke the best English he said it was me because I just used it in a really natural way without even thinking about it and that was my proudest moment, that was in year 13.

He was obsessed with zombies (and scarves) and we joked a lot about how he was going bald so young. 

Idk if you guys have that in other countries but in Hungary we don’t have year books we have this huge board (we call it tableau but when I google it it doesn’t show what I mean) with photos of the students in that class and every teacher who taught us, and well ours was zombie-themed obviously and it was all his idea. The background was a post-apocalyptic version of our town.

We had our regular photos taken but they were kind of elevated from the board and behind them was a mirror and on the other side of our regular photos we had zombie-versions of ourselves so if you looked in the right angle you could see a class full of zombies. (I actually have a photo too, hang on.)

Our prom dance was a traditional waltz and then a mash up of cool pop songs at the time, including but not limited to Party Rock Anthem and Waka Waka, in addition to Thriller (obviously, cause zombies) and he even had a part with one of the girls where they reenacted a scene from Dirty Dancing (the part where Patrick Swayze lifts Jennifer Grey above his head), and on our last class trip (to which I only went because of him) he got a bit wasted and people were scattered but I was ready for bed (because I’m cool) and he was in the dining area on his own drinking and singing Fuck Her Gently by Tenacious D x)

That was the class trip where I actually had my Only Sip of Alcohol when we took a trip to this miner statue in the middle of the night and we all passed this bottle of champagne around (the brand was BB because his nickname was BB (because of his initials)) and I had a sip for his honour. I even stood up next to the statue and held a very brief speech about how if I could do those five years again I would, and change so many things about it but right then and there I was having a really good time. I wanted him to know that I was having a good time but I didn’t want to lie about having regrets.

He was relentless about making me believe I had talent for film-making, or at least having cool ideas for short films. I think he entered my Media A-levels project in a competition, I still don’t know if it won anything because I was too embarrassed about it.

At our banquet we all officially agreed to start using the informal you with him, though most of my classmates already did but I just couldn’t get myself to do it cause he was a teacher and I was a lame embarrassing kid. He even called me out on it when I used the formal you for him later. I think I actually have an unanswered message from him I’ve been too embarrassed to open. I never stopped feeling bad for still letting him down somehow, though I imagine he had bigger worries in his life later.

He got engaged to his girlfriend last year. He had his birthday a few days ago.

He had a soft voice and a gentle smile and he was too young.