Monday morning. The fourteenth. I drove to school at 5:50, Rivers and Roads on repeat. 6:45am Meditation in Conference Room One. Doors slammed and mops sloshed, but it was easy to find my mantra this morning. Not here I am, but there you are.

Our 7:45am lesson was on Servant Leadership. I watched as my sleepy-eyed students struggled to stay awake through the four page article. We talked through the bullets. Is Servant leadership something you’re born with or do you develop it? What does it mean to be “sharply awake and reasonably disturbed?” Who are servant leaders you know? They were getting it, but barely. So I told them to put away the reading.

I turned off the lights and flashed up a picture of The Lawn at UVA. The Rotunda, the columns, the piles of firewood, the rocking chairs. “Who knows who Thomas Jefferson is?” I began. Yep, Ms. Alli's going crazy. Fueling their confusion, I talked through how he was also an incredible architect. And how he designed the Lawn at the University of Virginia, where I went to “uni.” I told them about the Lawn, lined with student rooms, and how the highest leadership honor at UVA was to be selected to live in one of those teensy bathroom-less rooms. Who needs aircon in August, anyway?

I told them about how I’d tried to President of this and Chair of that, piling positions onto my CV with my eyes on the prize – a (not-so-luxurious) Lawn room. "I’d thought I had a good shot – a really good shot, actually. So when I got that rejection email that January evening in 2008, I was devastated. I couldn’t believe it. If I hadn’t gotten it, who had? I was the P-res-ident of Kappa for goodness sakes! Chair of Student Arts Committee! Practically a 4.0 distinguished majors student! What else could you want, Thomas Jefferson!?!?" I winced in embarrassment and shame at my third-year self. My kids did, too. Guess those empathy lessons have been paying off, eh? They had expected me to tell them a success story.

But the success wasn’t mine. “When I found out one of my best friends, Sydney, got a room on the Lawn,” I told them, “I was totally confused. Wait a minute, what did she do to get a room? What positions had she held that had impressed the committee?” Even more wincing. "But Sydney wasn’t the one holding important positions. She had been doing things all along, sneaking out on Saturdays (while we were all still hungover in bed) to do community service, running programs none of her closest friends even knew about, really. Never asking for credit, for praise. She did it because she was truly serving others. The whole time. Not herself, not her resume."

They sat silent. “And I tell you this because Sydney is the best servant leader I’ve ever known. And it special that this was today’s lesson because one year ago today, we lost Sydney in a skiing accident.”

Breathe. “At her funeral, they described her in the most perfect way,” I told them. I tried to slow my shaking hands as I read the printout of the sermon. When Sydney walked into a room, it was not ‘Here I am’ but ‘There you are.’

Now that’s servant leadership. When the lights came on, my sleepy students were gone. They had gotten it. Class ended with a flurry of hugs. “Your friend sounds really special, Ms. Alli.” And in true Syd form, she’s still here, making us all better people. Whether it’s me or 17 year olds from across the African continent that she’s never met. She’s still inspiring us.

…

Two weeks later, and I’m still scrambling to do one-on-ones with each of my 21 students. Isaac and I are finishing up as he forks over his Sodexo dinner doused in gravy. “Anything else you want to talk about?” I ask. Making sure we’ve covered all the bases, you know. “No, Ms. Alli. I think that’s all.” But then he pauses, and I know he's got something else to say. “Ms. Alli, I just wanted to say thank you for sharing the story about your friend...Sydney, right? I wanted to tell you that I think about what you said a lot. The part about ‘Not here I am, but there you are.’ Like a lot, a lot.” 

And here she is again.