In early June of 2005 I was asked to give a speech on the meaning of teaching to the graduating seniors of Glen Lake. A first-year teacher, I wasn’t up to the task, instead delivering a nice sounding speech that said little of substance. Shortly afterwards, as I got in my car to drive home, I looked in the rearview mirror to see my first class of graduates separate from each other and scatter like seeds into the summer wind; leaving – in the words of Alfred Tennyson –  “to seek a newer world.”

The next day I met Sandy Mills.

Sandy and her family lived across the street from our new home in Maple City. A middle school science teacher in Traverse City, Sandy owned strange pets, hung geological maps in her living room, tilled a large vegetable garden, raised chickens, owned a refractor telescope, and cultivated a rock collection that overtook her porch and dining room. Sandy’s enthusiasm for the natural world – people, firstly; but fossils, especially – made her the perfect neighbor, friend, and teaching mentor. In the next several years, she taught my wife and I how to bake pastries, plant flowers, navigate our strange neighbors, organize adventurous Christmas parties, and appreciate the beauty of Leelanau County living. Teaching oozed out of her like the filling of her famous cinnamon rolls.

The next fall, Sandy Mills told us she was, to use her preferred phrase, “living with cancer.” She mentioned it casually one afternoon as we watched her sons perform bicycle tricks in the street between our homes, bronzed leaves falling through broken sunlight. It was impossible to believe – she seemed more likely to conquer science than succumb to it. And for much of the next two years, little pierced that perception. Unfortunately, her health deteriorated in late 2007, forcing her to give up teaching in December. I have yet to meet a person less interested in leaving the profession.

Sandy died during the spring break of 2008. Her funeral at Faith Reformed Church in Traverse City overflew into the banquet room with family, friends, colleagues, and, most significantly, students. Some of them entered with spouses and children of their own; others shuffled nervously alongside their parents. In every corner of the reception hall, young people shared stories of what Mrs. Mills had taught them. As I listened to her students’ stories, I realized the true meaning of teaching: that our influence lives and breathes with every student we help seek a newer world. It’s not a tangible thing. Like Sandy, we won’t get to see it.

But it’s there. Scattering like seeds in a summer wind.