I knew Scott for most of a decade. I had been hired by Darton State College one year before he started. We became friends immediately. Our relationship started professionally--he would graciously agree to read and provide feedback on my articles, essays, and book chapters. He never read my work in a cursory or absent-minded way. He always read it deeply and would gave sincere and honest feedback. I felt like I was Carl Jung after reading his feedback. (To that end, his name is in the Acknowledgements of at least 3 of my books. And in 2023 I wrote an entire article about a conversation we had 

Our relationship deepened over the years as we began sharing personal, professional, spiritual, and psychological problems with each other. A rejected book proposal, student or administrator conflict we'd been facing, personal problems at home or with family members. I would send him a text, and within the week we'd arrange to have coffee to talk about it. Or maybe we'd go for a walk on campus so he could express something that had been bothering him. An hour later and we'd both feel better.

Just last night I was reading an obscure book with a section on midlife transitions and crises. It's where I find myself professionally right now. I read a case study of another academic whose life sort of matched my own. The insights penetrated deeply, and my first thought was to mark the page and leave the book in Scott's faculty mailbox. I knew he would read it just as carefully even though it was published 40 years ago. He would read it, and he would be willing to discuss its usefulness to me. He would share the ways in which he felt it resembled my situations and the ways he thought it didn't. His observation would always be more generous than my own. 

But then I remembered that Scott is gone. What lives on in me is the memory of who he was for me in my career and the support he provided. Thankfully for me that doesn't have to go away.