Distant memories out of the closet

I wonder how I mess my apartment up! I am hardly home and also clean up my apartment every week! Today, as usual I was looking for something. Today it was a "clip" to tie my hair up. I manage to leave one in the lab and manage to sucessfuly break some of the banana clips. So when I was browsing through the mess in my closet.. I came across this. An Irish Handkerchief. Given to me in Lousiana by my Irish Professor for whom I was more of a daughter than a student. Even now, although its been more than 2 years that we have met, we connect in that manner. One professor who despite being 72, said "I am relentlessly young" For those of who, have never come across an Irish, one thing for sure is they have an extraordinary sense of humor. When I mentioned to my brother-in-law about him, he said "Just ask your profs to narrate you some Irish bar jokes" I approached him and asked him to tell me some. He smiled and said "Those jokes are the ones I could tell my wife but not to my daughter" His attitude is so much like "Morrie" from one of the most inspiring books I have read in recent times "Tuesdays with Morrie" There are some people who are absolutely inspiring. Although, I like a lot of people, there are very few ones to whom I look upto. On whom, I my level of trust can be equated to 'blind faith". He tops amongst those few people. I remember, one day while going down the elevator, when we were discussing some Indian recipe, he casually said "I believe, a woman should have a zeal for cooking. Otherwise, its no fun being a woman". Well, there were few other American women in the elevator too and obviously weren't too happy to hear that. We chuckled, but somehow he has been quite motivational for me to develop my interest in cooking. And then one day, on my first birthday in US..we celebrated my birthday by blowing one single candle on a muffin along with a cup of "English Blend Tea". Just him and me. The most memorable birthdays that I ever had. When he casually said "Just sit there. Women are supposed to sit there and look beautiful on their birthdays and enjoy the presents". Thats when he presented me with that handkerchief. For the fear of spoling it, I never used it. There are some gifts that are so special that although they are needed every waking day of your life, you dont get around using that! And then there are some gifts whose gift wrappers are also special:) coz they are just too precious to go into the trash:)