I kept thinking about you while visiting the schools this week.
With your magnetic personality, I think you would have absolutely thrived here. You had a way of connecting with people that made them feel comfortable, and I can imagine you walking into these classrooms and somehow becoming part of the group almost immediately. You would have talked to everyone, asked a million questions, laughed with the students, and probably walked away knowing half their life stories.
I especially thought about you at School 4.
There were a few boys there studying in what is still a mostly female field, and I think you would have really enjoyed meeting them. I can picture you being curious about what brought them there, what they hoped to do in the future, and what it was like for them to choose a path where they were part of the minority.
I think you would have appreciated their willingness to do something a little different.
You would also have loved the energy of the schools. Every group has been different. Some students are incredibly and curious, while others need a little more time before they feel comfortable enough to participate. I have been learning how much relationship-building matters before any real conversation can happen. Somehow, I think that part would have come naturally to you.
There have been so many little moments when I have caught myself wondering what you would have said or done. I imagine you joking with the students, and your efforts trying to learn Punjabi, asking questions about cricket, and probably getting yourself into conversations I never would have thought to start.
I think the students would have remembered you.
That is one of the difficult parts of this journey. I am experiencing places and moments that I know you would have enjoyed, and there is always that thought in the back of my mind: Matt should be here for this.
But I am also trying to look at it differently.
You are still being included.
You are in the photographs. You are in the stories I tell. You are in the moments when something happens and I immediately know you would have loved it. You are there every time I stop and imagine how you would have experienced this place differently than I do.
Today, you were in the schools with me.
Maybe not in the way we planned, but you were there.
And with that magnetic personality of yours, I am pretty sure you would have been a hit.