Mark Twain famously had the opportunity to watch his own funeral and listen to the kinds of things people say about you after you’ve died.
I don’t have any intention of dying, of course, so I don’t anticipate a funeral in my future, but on Saturday night, I came close by hosting a retirement party at the West Hartford Town Hall, where about 150 of my friends, colleagues, and former students gathered to celebrate with me.
It was one of those signature moments of my life — a night I will never forget.
Amongst the many guests were colleagues and former colleagues, the parents of former students, students ranging from my first year of teaching — 27 years ago — to my last year of teaching. Also, my in-laws. My oldest friend, Bengi. Clara and Charlie.
Charlie played the first hour of music onstage while people mingled and talked. Acoustic guitar while singing.
Songs I requested.
What a brilliant boy.
My friend Chris and his wife ended their vacation in Ontario and drove back to West Hartford to attend the party. This meant the world to me.
My speaking agent, Yolanda, flew in from Charleston.
I had friends from Boston, New York, and Florida in attendance.
I appreciated them all so much.
A room filled with people I love.
Lots of surprises, too.
Wolcott School’s band, composed of former music teachers Andy Mayo, Rob Hugh, and Dan Luongo, along with current teacher Josh Ranaudo, is playing the songs that have been performed for years at our school’s weekly Town Meeting.
Later in the night, they played “Childhood’s End” while Jennifer Stanish sang her heart out.
The centerpieces on each table were mason jars with photos of each of my 27 classes, along with notes from many of my students.
Hung along one wall were images of me with quotes written by my last class of students — many hilarious, but most heartfelt.
The evening was dominated by speeches that were truly unbelievable:
Hilarious. Revealing. Heartrending. Entertaining. Joyous.
It was incredible and incredibly hard to listen to so many people speak about me as they did.
Speeches were given by:
My principal, Scott Dunn, who postponed his vacation to attend.
My fifth-grade teammates and friends, Jennifer Stanish and Cindy Raynis
My former colleague and dearest friend, Donna Gosk
My former curriculum specialist and friend, Sharon Snow
Two former students, Alexis and Stella
My best friend, Bengi.
My former principal and friend, Plato Karafelis, sent us a video recorded at his home on the West Coast for us to watch. When his image appeared on the screen, the audience roared with applause.
We miss him dearly.
My friend and colleague, Kaia Pazdersky, also spoke, then she showed slides from my career while the band played “Childhood’s End” and Jennifer Stanish sang her heart out.
Kaia has a key to our home, so she had been sneaking into my office, collecting yearbooks, photos, and notes from children that I hadn’t seen in years.
This was followed by songs written about me, sung by students, and recorded by Rob Hugh as part of his Wolcott Songs program.
Layla Dow, a student whose stepfather, Elysha, taught, and who was angry at me for proposing marriage to Elysha in a year when he had a crush on her, wrote and sang the final Wolcott Song about me.
Elysha hosted the evening and delivered the final speech before I spoke.
It was glorious to hear these people speak so kindly and generously about me.
Scott Dunn talked about the nine years we spent together, supporting each other as he found his footing in our school. He talked about how I carry so many of our school’s stories and how much will be missed when I am gone.
He also asked the audience to raise their hands if they had ever received a handwritten letter from me in the mail.
More than half the audience raised their hands.
I had no idea how many letters I routinely send. I knew it was a lot, but even I was surprised by how many hands were raised in the room.
Jennifer Stanish told stories about me. My favorite was the story of a large salt lick — Himalayan sea salt — normally hung in a barn for horses that I hung from the ceiling one year after she declared her love for salt.
She also gave me a photo of an embarrassing drawing on a whiteboard — accidentally and extremely phallic — that I had been begging to own for more than a decade. Our colleague, Erica Newfang, who spoke beautifully about me at our last Town Meeting, was the creator of that drawing and had spent years keeping it from me.
At last, it’s mine.
Cindy Raynis told stories about Elysha and me falling in love. I heard about the first time she told her friends, “I think I’m in love with Matt Dicks!”
I loved hearing that story.
She also talked about how she and I planned the engagement together.
Cindy was the first person I told that I would be asking Elysha to marry me.
Both of them spoke about me as a colleague for 27 years and a teammate for the past 15 years in terms kinder than I deserved.
Donna Gosk told a story that I had forgotten about a time, very early in our friendship, when I took her to Trinity College for a poetry reading. After the resinf, one of my former professors approached and asked what I was doing after graduation. I told her I was teaching in West Hartford.
“Matt, you’re such a talented writer. Why are you wasting your talent on teaching?”
Donna set the record straight on what real talent is and where it should be used.
I love being reminded of stories from the past that I had forgotten, but have now returned to my mind so clearly.
Sharon Snow talked about how unconventional I was as a teacher, and how that was not always well-received. She got the audience chanting, “He gets away with everything!” after describing each thing I would do, or not do, that wasn’t expected or allowed.
Kaia brought my past to life with her slideshow. She talked about meeting her for the first time at our school. Soon, I had her over to my home for dinner, and years later, we are friends, colleagues, and business partners.
Bengi told a story about an evening when I was so drunk on Peppermint schnapps that he tormented me with the bottle, making me believe I was still drinking when I had asked him to take the bottle away.
I don’t remember any of it, which was his point:
Matt has told all my stories, so I finally found one that he hasn’t told, because he doesn’t remember it.
Plato talked about our early years together. He told us that three principals advised him not to hire me, but he went against all of their advice and did so anyway. He talked about the times I filmed terrifying videos for Halloween that we would premiere at Town Meeting, terrorizing small children and enraging their teachers.
But he also spoke about the impact I had on the school, its culture, and more.
Alexis spoke about our pandemic year spent together. It was a time when he father was also battling illness, so school was a place of respite and joy for her. She told me about all the rules I would break and encourage her — a rule-following monster — to break, too. My favorite was the time when two feet of snow fell one winter, making the Wolcott Children’s Forest off-limits, according to our principal.
I took the class anyway, sneaking under the outside camera and creeping through gaps in the video surveillance so we could plow through the forest in snow up to our waists.
Of course, when we returned to school, Aleis was able to don dry socks because I taught my students that you should always have a pair of dry socks with you.
Alexis wrote a letter to me and handed it to me on the last day of school. It is still one of my most cherished objects.
Stella spoke about the laughter that filled our room. The many pranks that I perpetrated on the class.
My favorite:
A girl named Holly had a crush on a boy named Max, so I bought H&M shirts for Stella and me. One day, we both wore the shirt, much to the class’s dismay.
“Why are you both wearing identical shirts from H&M?”
“Strange coincidence,” we said.
It was midafternoon when it finally dawned on Holly what we were doing/ “You two!” Then she rose from her seat. “You two! I know what you’re doing! I can’t believe you!”
I’ll never forget, Stella won’t, either.
Elysha spoke about how relentless I am.
Always looking for the next thing.
Always looking to expand my life.
Always looking to fill my days and nights with something interesting or challenging or new.
She explained that this is partly from a scarcity mindset, born in childhood, which had never occurred to her, but I knew she was right the moment she said it.
She has a way of explaining me to me that still astounds me.
But she also told the audience that my relentlessness is born more of an insatiable curiosity to want to know everything, do everything, and see everything, which I needed to hear, too.
Leaving teaching is hard. It’s harder than I ever thought it would be. But she framed it well for me:
I’m leaving behind a dream come true. A job I do so well. A job I still loved doing every day.
But in doing so, my life will become even more interesting. It will expand once again. I’m relentless. It demands evolution and change. After 27 years of teaching, the time is right.
She knows how to take care of me.
Then I spoke. Unlike any speech I’ve ever delivered in my life, I wrote much of this one down. I had spoken a week before at our fifth-grade celebration and had fallen apart halfway through, unable to collect myself through tears and genuine weeping. I forgot things I wanted to say. Couldn’t say the things I wanted to say. I was a mess.
This has never happened to me before.
Afraid it might happen again, I decided I had better have the word on a page in case I fell apart again. I didn’t want to forget anything.
I didn’t read from the speech word for word, and I told three stories that I didn’t write down at all, but I was glad to have the words in front of me. They helped me remember what needed to be said, and they kept things in order for me.
I’ll post that speech in the coming days.
We also had a professional photographer and videographer for the evening, so everything was recorded and will be produced into a beautiful package of the night that I may share at some point.
Better photos. Great video. Memories to cherish.
Lots more stories to share from the night, too. Special moments with former students, parents, and colleagues. Moments I never want to forget.
Thanks yo to Elysha, Kaia, and Sharon, who put the event together.
Thank you to Dan, Andy, Josh, and Rob, who not only played the music for the evening but also, according to Elysha, greatly assisted with the planning and flow.
Thank you to Charlie for playing and singing so beautifully.
And thanks to Doro, who catered the event, and Molly Brandner, another former student of mine, who runs the events at Doro and planned the entire evening of food and drink with Elysha.
I think my agent and friend, Yolanda, said it best:
“Matt, no one gets a night like I just saw. No one. I wish they did, but truly, no one ever gets to enjoy something like I just witnessed. It was incredible.”
I’m so very lucky, I know. I had a glorious, unbelievable, improbable, possibly impossible teaching career, and it ended with an unbelievable, improbable, possibly impossible night to remember.
I feel so fortunate to have so many people in my life who love me so much.
