As a kid, I did not adjust well to change. I would get anxious at the end of every school year, and summers were the worst because I knew that a full-on anxiety attack could (and would) strike at any time. I liked the routine of going to school and being distracted from my obsessive musings on mortality. During the school year, I also had new episodes of The Simpson, 90210, or Friends to calm, distract, and soothe my anxious mind. But all of that routine and structure was gone in the summertime.
I was the most anxious when I was leaving one school and starting another. The summer between elementary school and middle school was horrendous. The summer between middle school and high school was crippling. But every fall, I ended-up adjusting to my new school and my new routine. I loved going back to school.
When I started high school, I took “Theater Arts” as an elective. My teacher was a funny, hefty man in his 30’s named Mr. Neisler (full name, Terrance "Terry" Neisler, in case anyone is Googling him). I loved his class immediately. We learned about theater history, movement, sound, make-up, stage combat, you name it.
Mr. Neisler was also the director of my first high school play, The Taming of the Shrew. He was my first mentor. He encouraged me and believed in me. He was the first adult who treated me like an equal. He treated me like a friend. He got me. He saw me. He made me feel seen (which is all we really want).
Another theater teacher at my high school was in charge of the Freshman One-Act Play. Since I had been in two other plays my freshman year, I felt confident that I would be cast in a play with only freshmen. But she didn’t cast me in the play. At all. And I was devastated. I cried...a lot.
But Mr. Neisler was there to comfort me and assure me that there would be other plays. He told me the other director was crazy to not cast me. But then something funny happened. The lead male actor had to quit the play because he was failing a class. So the director asked me if I would be willing to play the male lead. I didn’t know how I was going to memorize all of those lines (I had never been the LEAD in anything in my life), but I said yes and agreed to play the male lead.
The next school year, I took choir instead of theater as my elective, but I knew that I would still get to see and talk to Mr. Neisler during the fall production, which I was looking forward to auditioning for. I was cast in that play, and in the next spring, I was again cast in the Varsity One-Act Play. And our friendship only grew stronger.
Mr. Neisler told me that he might be moving. He said that the school principal wanted the other theater teacher to direct the Varsity One-Act Play next year. Mr. Neisler said that he was already starting to look for theater teaching jobs in Houston, where his wife’s family was from. Apparently his wife was unhappy in McAllen and wanted to move to Houston to be closer to her family.
By the end of my sophomore year, the news was official that Mr. Neisler would not come back in the fall. I was going to lose to my favorite teacher, my mentor, and my best friend. I was heart-broken.
But before he moved, we did one more play together. Mr. Neisler and I both auditioned for the McAllen Shakespeare-In-The-Park production of The Tempest, and the play would be directed by Mr. Gelber, the theater teacher from another high school in McAllen. Mr. Gelber and Mr. Neisler were best friends. All of Mr. Gelber’s theater students were going to audition for this play, as were Mr. Neisler’s theater students.
I didn’t do very well that summer, after he moved. I was anxious a lot. I was weepy a lot. I had problems falling asleep at night. I didn’t have a normal routine. I probably drank a lot.
I hung out at Mr. and Mrs. Gelbers’ house A LOT - as a lifeline to Mr. Neisler. We all watched movies together (like the Kenneth Branagh Hamlet and the 10th Anniversary Concert of Les Misérables). I also hung out with the Gelbers' oldest son, Devon, and I babysat for the younger boys, Alex and Jamie.
The next summer, Mr. Neisler took his Houston theater students to New York City to see Broadway shows, and he invited me to come with them. Mrs. Gelber was originally going to go on this trip, but she injured herself and needed surgery. So she let me take her place on this trip. I had a wonderful time with Mr. Neisler and his new students. It was clear that his new students loved him as much as we did.
One year later, I graduated from high school and moved to Indiana to go to college. Early in the school year, I was on AOL Instant Messenger with a friend from McAllen. He told me, through Instant Messenger, that Mr. Neisler had cancer.
All of these years later, I still don’t know exactly when he died. I never asked about a funeral. I didn’t get to say goodbye. I didn’t get to tell him what a huge role he played in my life. I don’t know where his wife and kids are living or how they’re doing. Do they know how much he was loved?
However, I recently reconnected with Mr. Gelber, who is now teaching theater at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. I found him on Facebook, then found his Texas Tech email address and sent him an email. I told him how much I regretted not being there for Mr. Neisler at the end of his life, and I told him how much Mr. Neisler meant to me.
Mr. Gelber wrote back the next day and said, “You mustn’t worry about not being there for him. He knew how you felt.”
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