BEST FRIEND

A friend of mine left a comment on a prior blog. Michele Jent is her name. She brought to mind her father, a fellow I want you to know. His name was Mike Schill, and he was my best friend.

Mike and I were teachers together at St. Gabriel the Archangel School in Indianapolis. He taught Science, I taught Math and Social Studies. He was a bit acerbic, a bit wacky, and very intelligent, so of course we hit it off. Opposites attract, don’t you know. He was a good chess player. He got me interested in chess, then helped me develop into a decent chess player, so much so that we started a Chess Club, and I was able to take a team to the National Chess Tournament in Kissimmee, Florida. He was like a big brother to me, and trust me, at that time of my life, I was the world’s crappiest little brother.

A blog or so back, I mentioned the issues Robin and I had. Well, truth be told, the issues were all mine. For a brief, dull, black moment in my life, I was a narcissistic sociopath. OK, you got me. I’ve been a narcissistic sociopath most of my life. I thought I had a handle on it before I married Robin, but it came roaring back, in spades.

I learned a lot during that dark time of my life. One lesson-People typically don’t like narcissistic sociopaths. They’re dicks. Another lesson-People in an affair aren’t as good at hiding what they’re doing as they think. People know. Another lesson-your behavior changes, which affects all sorts of other people who notice.

Mike noticed, probably before anyone else. He was that way. He was very observant. He gathered data, and watched as my teaching performance took a nose dive. I was distracted, I was irritable. I thought I was playing it cool. I was not. My wife and I were separated, and Mike bided his time. That time came one day after school. I heard a knock on the door of my apartment. When I opened the door, Mike stood there.

I invited him in and we sat down in the the living room. In true Mike fashion, he got right to it. “What are you doing?”

Mike was a big fan of the Socratic Method. I watched him use it in the classroom. With it he could get any student to where they needed to be any his questions. What followed was a master class in the Socratic Method. I would try to answer a question with some bullshit that Mike would cut right through. I would flare in anger, and he wouldn’t react. I felt like I was Captain Kirk getting cross examined like Spock. Except I wasn’t as cool as Captain Kirk, and it wasn’t a cross examination, it was a vivisection.

Mike opened me up like a hot knife through butter. At the end, I looked at him and said, “Christ, Mike! What do I do?”

He replied, “It’s not up to me to tell you what to do. But what do we tell the kids all time when they make a mistake?”

I mumbled, “It’s not the mistake that defines you, it’s what you do afterwards that defines you.”

He got up and said, “That’s right. So how will you be defined?”

He left me to my thoughts. And I had a lot of them.

That night saved my marriage. No one in my family ever called me out, None of my other friends stood up to me and called me on my BS. Mike did. He cut through all the lies I had created, laid out the depth of the pain I had caused, and then challenged me to do the right thing. All by asking questions.

Mike passed away from mesothelioma. He was diagnosed in November, if I recall correctly, and passed in June. He was torn from his family, his friends, he was torn from my life. Yet his legacy lives on.

Robin and I got back together and worked at our marriage, the way it was supposed to be. My oldest daughter got married, and has two sons. My youngest was a state champion figure skater and was on a volleyball team that played for the state championship. If he had not had that conversation with me, none of that would have happened.

Michele is also his legacy. She is a good person. Sharp-witted, like her father, and just as capable of cutting through BS to get to the truth. I see a lot of Mike in her. I hope that I’ve defined myself better after my mistake. I’ve tried to take Mike’s lessons and pass them along to my daughters, to my friends. When it’s needed, be dispassionate, be concise, ask questions, call out BS. Be a true friend.

Thank you, Michele, for getting me to let people know what a good man he was.

I miss you, Mike.