I had Jim Lawrence for my very first counseling class, Counseling Techniques. He talked to us about having a professional library, and collecting all of the books that we use in school to then have when we go on to be professionals. It was something I had never thought of before, but it made a lot of sense. Since then, I started to save all of my books that I thought would be useful for my upcoming career.

I had Jim again for Couples Therapy last December when I was headed in for my surgery. My surgery was scheduled for December 17, 2007, the exact week of finals. I had to tell all of professors about my situation, and take all of my finals early. For Jim’s class, we had a paper due on Dec. 17th. I told him that I was going into surgery to remove a tumor on my thyroid, and he understood completely. He told me that he, too, was battling terminal prostate cancer. He had gone through treatment many times, but now, it had spread, and he was dying. He had never told a student before, and he was trying to continue life as normal as possible. He wanted to keep teaching for as long as possible because he loved it. He gave me as much time as I needed for my paper, and said that he could give me an incomplete if he had to, and I could pass the paper in in January. I didn’t want to have to work on the paper at all when I recovering, so I was determined to have it finished before my Monday morning surgery. Sunday night, I finished the paper, and gave my brother specific instructions on when and where to deliver my paper. Class was held Monday night at 5pm, and I wanted to pass my paper in!

Nine months later in September 2008, Jim was my professor again for Family Systems Therapy. Jim had spent 30ish years as a Marriage and Family Therapist. During our first class, he announced to the class that he was dying. Not only was he dying, but his loving wife had passed away in August, only two weeks before.

Jim was only our teacher for about 4 classes, when he got very sick and had to go into the hospital. They replaced him with another professor, and class continued. Jim died on December 3. He was a great professor, and he will definitely be missed.

Yesterday, as I was leaving the gym, I got an email from the counseling secretary that said that Jim’s family had dropped off all of the books from his professional library, and they were free to students to take as many as they wanted. I drove right to the counseling department after the gym to have a look. I ended up taking a box and a half (15 books maybe?) of books ranging from topics of how to talk to kids about divorce, couples counseling, family therapy, and a lot of other stuff.

I’m very excited, not only about all of my new books, but because they came from Jim Lawrence. Seeing these books on my book shelves, even twenty years from now, I will always remember Jim, and how wonderful he was.