Professor Carol Yawney ( Published)

Recently I read about your death. Cancer is all it explained. It mentioned that you had lived up North. It talked about you being an expert. Did it talk about your awards? Perhaps it did not know. And then it had an opening for me to seek more information, it said. I pressed my finger on the appropriate key, your image wiped away as swift as the exclamation of your death. I typed to an unknown face that you had been my favourite professor, an anthropologist you were and though that was not my discipline, if I had been younger I would have gladly changed my major to study and work under your direction. I asked whom I could send a sympathy card to. Yesterday I realized I had received a reply from the unknown face who expressed appreciation at my kind words. Perhaps I could offer a small contribution to a scholarship in her name once it was set up. There was no one…..to send a sympathy card to it said. Of course I replied. I would contribute in her memory. Please notify me when it is completed. I continued with my work. There is no one. When I drove home last night, your smiling happy face lit up the road before me. There is no one….. This morning I awoke to study for an exam for my own major… It is the statistics part of my major, which I left for last. I have no interest in raw data and numerous numbers. But it is a must. I went into my small kitchen that I have decorated so elegantly and looked out at my back yard. I inhaled the beauty of nature as I appreciated the trees I have planted and nurtured. I wanted a little park in my back yard and perhaps in my front yard. A place in the city to call home, a place to prepare for my old age when perhaps I can not go too far; a place to feel beauty. And then it happened, tears……"There is no one", no one… How can there be no one? There is everyone…for you have touch so many. You were my favourite professor. Why? You loved us. Love is felt. You taught us about medicine, young and ancient, but you also taught us about ourselves. Remember when I emailed you about going downtown to interview some people about a paper I was compiling? "You did what?" your words shouted. "What is your phone number?" you continued. You will never call me, I hoped. You lived so far up North. You did call and you went on and on about how I represented the university and the repercussions of interviewing without the proper protocol etc….but I got my A anyway, didn't I? Oh, yes you did work us, but why did it not seem like work? There is no one…. You know, we used to talk about you. We knew you lived and studied in Jamaica for many years and we talked about how you must have fallen in love and never married because you still yearned for him. How silly we were, were we not? We did marvel when you spoke of your home up North in the middle of no where, making sure your garbage was sealed so the bears would not get in. You spoke fondly of the people up there and the children. I am sure you mentioned children. There is no one… Remember when I asked you about the books you have written. You shrugged it off and said we would find it boring. And remember when we didn't have you for one class because you had to go to the States to receive an award? You again shrugged it off. The only thing you did not shrug off was us. There is no one…. Remember when you saw me speaking to a staff member one day and you looked at him and said, "She is not what she appears. She is a student." You continued on your way with that flair of yours. There is no one…. Remember when there was that strike with the TA's and we came to class? There were six of us. You asked why we were there? You informed us that we were the university, you as faculty and we as students and then there was them, the administration. There is no one… Oh, Professor Yawney I am so sorry that you died. You gave so much of your self. As I shed my tears, I shed too for the students you will no longer be able to touch. But I know that if there is another place, you will be there smiling and laughing with the joy of another life, for you to grow and touch again. You were so special and humble. And yes we know that you had many friends and people close to you because you told us. There is no one? Of course there is. There is everyone. Silva Redigonda Your student