Professor Jeffrey Skillings, Photo Courtesy: Dean College
What is life without questioning one’s mortality every so often? When the sun sets, everyone just wants to look back at their life and say they’ve regretted nothing. Professor Jeffery Skillings is perhaps the most shining example of a human who has nothing but positivity to say about the story he has lived thus far.
Professor Skillings lives in a house that he and his wife had built in their beloved state of Rhode Island. It wasn’t long into retirement that the professor decided he’d almost rather do anything else. He didn’t golf or sail, and he didn’t have a wide group of friends to get cocktails with like his wife did. So when a position opened up to teach again at Dean, he leaped at the chance. As someone who always loved reading, he found it even more invigorating to teach.
He was an English major at the University of Rhode Island, unsure of what to do with his degree. It was in his graduate school years that he met Professor David Steinback. “I’d notice how he taught,” Professor Skillings said, “and how much passion he had for his subject. I was sort of thinking to myself, ‘I wanna do what he does. That looks like fun.’” Not only was it just the passion and the humor inspired Skillings, but the balance between work and life as well. Through a series of circumstances, Professor Skillings began teaching at Dean in ’82.
The love Professor Skillings has for life is inspiring. He loves his job, saying he never had a bad day at work. He loves his family and his children. “My marriage to my wife, my two daughters. That’s my number one achievement or happiness. Never stops growing, I love it so much. I love being a husband, I love being a father, y’know?” He is so thankful for all that life has given him, and it is such an admirable thing to have these days.
Professor Skillings has dealt with cancer, which now remains dormant, as well as two heart attacks. Still, he doesn’t complain, viewing himself as merely having the simple troubles that many others do. Having overcome such sickness, he views aging and mortality as just another step towards the end. He stares at it with no fear, only a joy and gratefulness of the life he has known.
“Be more observant of everything around you,” he says. Not just writers, but he thinks everyone needs to take the time to become a bit more of an observer. He referred to a quote by the poet Keats about truth being beauty. There is much we can learn about our world, simply by opening our eyes.
There is one truth that has always evaded Professor Skillings, however. After high school graduation, an unmarked card came in his mail. Written on it was, “I wish I had known you better because you seem like a nice person to know.” Unsigned. Forever anonymous. “I think about that endlessly,” he says. How could one not? Even with that mystery, he looks at the life he has led and does nothing but smile.
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