dear mr. salasar,

i always wanted to teach.  ever since i was a child.  you said i would make a great teacher someday, remember that?  i thought about writing you so i could let you know that i actually became a teacher - and a pretty good one for that matter.  well, to be honest, it may have taken me a couple of years to really learn how to teach well.  but then life took me down so many different paths and now i don't teach anymore.  i really miss it, though.

but i still think about you every now and then.  i still remember our english classes.  you were my teacher for two or three years back when i was a teenager.  and you were probably...  sixty-five, maybe seventy?  you were my oldest teacher and most definitely the wisest.

remember all those stories you used to tell your students about when you were young?  i remember them all so well, maybe because you must have told us the same ones dozens of times.  you always managed to get our attention with your stories.  we didn't mind listening to them over and over again.  it was just like re-reading a great book...

oh, your life as a young adult was so cool!  i loved to hear all about those years when you were living in paris.  how awesome is that?  you told us about the time when you started writing.  about being a writer and a teacher.  about your four daughters and how they all managed to marry well (and your sons-in-law being all foreigners).  but i must confess i always wondered why you were still teaching back then, when you could have been enjoying your retirement.  and if you were still married, because you only talked about your daughters, never about your wife.  i always wondered what had happened to your leg - maybe you'd had an accident.  but you never talked about those things, so we never asked.

remember how you always said i should travel abroad and see the world?  i did.  i've been to a bunch of places and i've met so many different people...  you couldn't have been more right!  i loved it and i really wanted you to know that.  i thought you'd be proud. 

i remember once you gave me one of the books you wrote.  and as i opened it, i saw that handwriting of yours.  it read: "to a great student, a bright mind".  how thoughtful of you!  i started reading your book as soon as i got home and i got to know you a little bit more because of it.  remember that character who said: "i will never open the door to the End. (...)  if it wants, it might as well sneak in through the window.  but i will not open the door to the End".  i loved that story.

that man was you, wasn't it? i didn't get it back then. 

i thought it was about time i thanked you for everything you taught me and all the encouragement you gave me.  see, ever since i can remember, my dad has always read the newspaper in the mornings.  and i can still remember the day he called me and, looking over his glasses, told me he had been reading the obituary.  "don't be sad, sweetheart".

i still think you shouldn't have left that window open.

love,

luisa