Those who know, know. I have fewer words to share about where I grew up as time goes on. Even now, though, the words aren’t usually positive. I endured a lot of trauma, negative teachings, and harmful environments in my first eighteen years of life. One of the few positive people from those nearly two decades isn’t alive anymore. He hasn’t been since the summer before my junior year of high school. What he said and what he says, still, gets me through even the hardest days.
On July 24, 2013, our world lost one of the greatest humans to ever live. I don’t say that lightly. It’s not dramatized. Matt Lock (known by us as Lock) was one of the best people I’ve ever known. When he lost his battle with depression, a deep-seeded desire to save the world settled into my mind. I drove myself toward a Bachelor’s in Psychology (I got it). In my admissions interviews with professors, they kept saying, “don’t go into this field to save people.” I couldn’t think of anything else, though. People needed saving.
One of the scholarship essays I wrote prior to college included this paragraph:
“As a key piece to our approximately 350-piece community puzzle, the loss of Matthew Lock deeply affected our community. From an outside perspective, a person might think that one person is one person. It’s as simple as that. But it’s not. It never is. Mr. Lock had the special ability to be that ‘one person’ for hundreds of people. He took fatherless teenagers under his wing to provide them with paternal guidance. He spent countless hours teaching the quadratic formula to the tune of [Katy Perry songs]. He created elaborate decorations for homecoming and prom celebrations to make the night as special as possible for his students, his kids. He stepped into the path of a storm, not only to stop it but also to provide shelter, when a student showed up to school after a rough night. He stretched himself thin to glue together everyone else’s broken pieces.”
I can still hear him laughing about the same ridiculous jokes he made repeatedly. I still see his bright smile when I picture his face. I still remember his intense annoyance when two friends and I covered part of his classroom floor in glitter (we really messed up…). I still avoid skipping Katy Perry songs if I have any say in the matter.
And there is more. What he says, still, hits me hard.
Over the last nine months of my life, I’ve survived without full-time employment, without my identity of being a student, without the same abilities I once had and took for granted, and some days without being at home (grippy socks hotel stay for the win). In the last nine months, I’ve had dozens of people cut me out of their lives because they think that I’m not “enough.” Sure they can say “doing enough” or “trying hard enough” or “working enough” but it boils down to the same thing. And on my darkest days, I still hear what Lock says, and it still gets me through — “Just don’t suck.”
This is a quick tone shift, but it’s related I swear.
It’s 2024. I rarely listen to the radio. I’m sure many of you relate. Often when I do, a Katy Perry song will play. Sometimes it’s “Firework” and I can hear Lock’s offkey singing to it. I can hear his first-day-of-school presentation with another teacher in which they talked about mental health, of course in tune with those lyrics and the lyrics of “Roar”. Other times it’s “Hot N Cold” or “ET.”
Every time, I smile (usually through tears) and I thank Lock and the universe and anything else at play for giving me a sign that I will be okay. That life will work out.
Less than a week ago, it was a Wednesday. I went to an appointment and found out that, after four months of dealing with fear and internal panic and insurance and other hoops to jump through, I don’t have a tumor, which is what the other doctors (and I) thought. The positive news didn’t actually hit me until the next night, as I sat in the parking lot of HomeGoods. The tears started to fall before I turned on the radio. When I did, Katy Perry’s voice belted out “Do you know that there's still a chance for you? / 'Cause there's a spark in you” and I momentarily lost it.
I had seen the mirrored angel number 2222 earlier that evening. As someone interested in numerology (note: I’m just now in this moment connecting the numerology love to the numbers love that Lock had as a math teacher. wow), I know that the number 2222 is symbolic of someone watching over me. The 2222 number is a sign from them, assuring and reminding me that they believe I am hardworking, determined, and on the right path.
That’s what I still hear. What he says, still.
In junior high and high school, Lock saw me. He saw me for who I was and who I could be. He made sure I knew it, too. Often times, my teenage self didn’t want to hear it and would walk away.
The last time that I saw Lock alive, I didn’t wave “goodbye” back to his smiley self. I beat myself up about that for years. Now? I’m grateful. I didn’t let him go. He’s gone, and he’s still here. I am so grateful.
Remember your loved ones. Embrace the joyful moments that remind you of them. Grimace through the difficult ones that make you remember when they pushed you to do more. Most of all, remember that — at all times — there is this one truth that is unshakeable. It’s the truth I share with all of you, all the time: we are who we have.