I’ll Tell Him Tomorrow

When you listen, it’s amazing what you can learn.

When you act on what you’ve learned, it’s amazing what you can change.

~Audrey McLaughlin

It was the last period of the school day, and the last group had just finished showing their project to the class. We were wrapping up our unit on rhetoric and the art of persuasion. This group had created an infomercial showcasing the use of Aristotle’s logos, ethos, and pathos to advertise a green tea that could improve your skills at anything you wanted.

The video they made showed a student on a basketball court shooting an airball. Then he drank some of the green tea and unleashed a barrage of swish after swish. Then it showed a close-up of my student Sean drawing stick figures. He took a swig of the green tea and frantically scribbled all over the page. Seconds later, Sean held up his art piece, revealing the Mona Lisa, and the whole class erupted in laughter.

Sean was good at making people laugh, even though he wasn’t good at putting effort into his grades. But he was as smart as any student and wiser than most adults.

I was so proud of Sean. His group had hit a grand slam, and I was excited to inform him that he had just earned his first A. He once told me that he had never received an A before.

The bell rang just as their video finished, and I started to walk from my desk over to Sean, who was walking toward the door. There was the hustle-and-bustle energy of school being out for the day, and I was maneuvering my way through students to reach Sean. I wanted to make a big deal of him getting his first A. I was going to high-five him, congratulate him and let him know what a stellar job he had done. He was about to reach the door and I almost shouted out his name to wait, but then the thought in my head said, I’ll just tell him tomorrow. I let Sean walk out my classroom door without ever saying a word about how great I thought he was.

I had the dream again that night, the same one I’d been having the last several nights. I usually didn’t remember my dreams for more than a flash of a second, but this one had stuck with me each day when I woke up.

In my dream, I was speaking at a funeral. I never saw the face or heard the name of the person who died, but I knew it was a student’s funeral, and I was surrounded by strangers who were grabbing onto me as if I could heal them of their pain.

The next morning as first period was about to begin, a girl from my fifth-period class (Sean’s class) burst into the door. “He’s been hit! He’s been hit!” she frantically shouted.

“Who?” I replied.

She collapsed onto my feet and cried out, “Sean! A car hit Sean, and his body is still in the street.”

Four days before his sixteenth birthday, one block away from Fountain Valley High School, Sean was hit by a car while riding his bike to school. That night, when I was finally about to leave campus after hours spent consoling grieving students, I stared at Sean’s empty desk and wrote down a few words about Sean on my Facebook page. Those words would go locally viral, and they reached Sean’s parents. They printed what I wrote in Sean’s funeral program and asked me to speak.

I will always regret that I didn’t pay more attention to that recurring dream. Never make my mistake and delay expressing your love or appreciation until tomorrow. Don’t let someone walk out the door without giving them their “A.”

I cry when I think of Sean’s death, but I smile when I think of Sean’s life. Sean was a master at turning strangers into friends and was always happy and smiling. When I start to feel down about life, I think about the boy who never lost his smile because he was always giving it away to others. Sean said, “The purpose to life is to enjoy your life and to make friendships and take notes.”

Sean was a genius at making friends, but he didn’t write down any notes in his classes. Standing next to his hospital bed, holding his hand while machines kept his body pumping even though he no longer had brain activity, I realized the notes were not for him to take — but for us to take from him.

The final words Sean wrote in my class were: “Revolt. Rebel. Love. What is truth? We’re all killing ourselves. There are too many fakes in the world. We need real leaders who have values. Every life matters, yet some act as if some lives aren’t worth as much. People need to take their eyes away from TV to enjoy what’s around them. War is created because of how people treat each other. We all need to be more aware and stop paying attention to less important things. There’s always someone who needs help. I think you just have to accept some things. Think of Sisyphus. Maybe he’s happy because the task is supposed to punish him, and since he’s a rebel, he’s going to be happy to make the gods mad.”

I made a promise to Sean’s mother that I would share his story with my classes every year because when you speak someone’s story, they never fully die. Due to the global pandemic from COVID-19, our school was shut down in the spring of 2020, and I hadn’t shared Sean’s story yet.

I’m glad I can share it here even though I missed my opportunity with my students. Sean lives on in every person who reads his story and decides to speak love more loudly. Sean lives on in all the people his organs gave new life to. And he lives on in all the people who learned to speak their truth and their love because of him. We all take notes… from Sean.

At the beginning of each class, I say these words to my students: “I love you big, giant, much!” There was a kid named Sean Dylan Severson in my English Language Arts class, but I was not his teacher; I was his student, and I continue to take notes.

— Steve Schultz —