The Unavailable Mr. Hughes

Some ten years ago, I sat in a teachers' workshop and shared my memories of Hill Hughes, a high school English teacher, and why he meant so much to me. I can well imagine Mr. Hughes wiping his brow when I walked out of his classroom for the last time. Surely, I had not proven his most promising or successful student. Wise enough to recognize ability, he probably knew that I profoundly underachieved in his class, but I'm fairly certain he didn't foresee me teaching English as a profession, earning a doctorate, and publishing on some of the very literary works that I so studiously avoided studying seriously when they appeared on his syllabus.
After I told of this man, I remember Helen Burnstad, our staff development director at the time, asking, "Have you told him how much he meant to you?" Obviously, I had to write this man a letter. I called the school the next day to retrieve his address, but I never got that letter written.
Today, for some odd reason, I thought of that undone task. Again I contacted the school, but this time I received word that Hill Hughes passed away in October 2004.
I'm not self-absorbed enough to believe that I somehow ruined the last six years of Mr. Hughes' life by not telling him about how life turned out for me. He did not, I'm certain, die wondering "What about Browning?" with his last breath. Still, I might have added a sliver to his day had I taken the time to write that letter and get it in the mail. And today, the opportunity is gone.
This is not some thinly veiled attempt to be praised for my teaching. Instead, it's a bit of a carpe diem plea. When we get opportunities, we simply have to act upon them. Far too many of those chances go away, never to return.