Why my life will NEVER, EVER BE THE SAME AGAIN...!!!

At first, it all seems just a bad dream...I'll wake up, and he'll still be there, teaching, laughing, babbling, all stressed and excited at the same time...the day will fly by, as usual, and students will flock home or to hang out with friends, and they'll hear him call out: "Love ya, mean it, DON'T DO DRUGS!" as they go...

Why was it so hard to see that he'd go like he did? Sure, he was fun-loving, he laughed much, he seemed to have a light heart. Why didn't I see it??? His sadness, how he was really drowning?

Eric...Eric Bailey, only 40 years old. God! I'm already more than half his life span at 23 years old. 40 years old and...no more. And yet, still, no less. He is no less to me and thus will always be.

"O, Captain, my Captain...fallen, cold and dead!"

No...! It's not only a bad dream...it's a cursed nightmare from wicked Hell! And this time, this time, I cannot wake up!!!

I worry about his own children, his boy and his girl...what about them? How will they cope without Daddy? How will they go on? How will they reguard this monstrous tradgety? They're in their own nightmare...their own hell...

And his students, his other children...what hell are they in???

Memories are all that's left, sweet memories of my Captain...

The way he laughed, the way he hugged, the way he walked, the way he spoke...the way he was. And yet...he was just a man, scared, lost, hurting. And so like a man, he hid it away from this world.

I have so many favorite memories of him. Like the time I accidently "ran over" him in my chair and he pretended to be hurt. I couldn't for the life of me stop laughing! And the time he read my theater inventory to my Theater III/IV class giggling his butt off!

He and I used to tell each other "dirty jokes" too that I can't write out or God would smite me. He used to call me "little girl" all the time and "squirrell-bait", too! Geez, "squirrell-bait" is a name only Mr. Eric Bailey would come up with!

I remember he was hurt when I didn't take his Theater IV class, but Mr. Shaw messed that one up for me as I couldn't take ASL III and Theater IV together--they were during the very same block class, A-2!

Once, when I was absent from his class the previous day, he found me in the cafeteria line, stopped me, and said, "Where were you yesterday, little girl?" He geniunely sounded hurt. I had been sick the day before but I promised him I wouldn't miss his class anymore. I did my best not to.

The day that I graduated...a day I will never forget... (May 25, 2000--my 18th birthday, no less!) he waited for me and greeted me when I came out of the Super Pit. He gave me a card from him. "I'll never forget Annie in a plane crash! Love, Eric" it said, among other very sweet things. "Annie in a plane crash" was something I improvised in class one morning in Theater II. Bailey loved it and told friends and other students about it! I pretended I was a child star singing "Tomorrow" as our fictious plane we were all was going down!

I guess why I love him so much (well, there are countless reasons why I love him) was because he and his class helped me get through all my personal hell when my parents divorced and neglected me for almost 3 years while I was a Sophmore-Senior at Denton High School. He gave me a reason to live and to want to live.

In the 2 years after I graduated, before I had to move, I visited him whenever I could. We would literally hold our own parties and laugh/joke fests back there in his office; sometimes, it became so wild that Ms. Shaw would come back there to quiet us down!

Eric was so good to me and he cared about me as no other teacher did. We could talk about almost anything together. I think I'll miss the two of us laughing together the most though, laughing together at our own jokes and lives for 7 straight unforgetable, wonderful, magical years!

Miss yahs, Bailey! I love you forever--please do not forget me!!!

Your "little girl" and "squirrell bait",

Celia Foster