Marc Lion touched the hearts of many
Marc Lion, beloved NPHS English teacher, was known by students, family and coworkers alike for his humor and his loving nature. He loved teaching, playing the bass, the color blue, his friends and his wife, Sandra. On Monday, April 4, Marc Lion passed away after battling cancer for two years.
Teaching
Sandra Lion, Marc Lion’s wife who knew him for over 43 years, remembers her husband as being a compassionate, generous person. “He was very loving. He was very caring. He was selfless. He was a good teacher. [He had a] really good heart and he always wanted to give back. He got a lot from students he could teach…. He took on any challenge and he conquered it,” she said.
On the subject of teaching, Sandra Lion recalls her husband’s unbridled passion for educating his students. “He just, he wanted to make sure that the light bulbs went on and he also wanted to give them the confidence and the support, you know, that they needed. If, you know, to accomplish what they were capable of accomplishing but didn’t know it. He just wanted to build like better, better little human beings to graduate,” Sandra Lion said.
Christine Hodson, coworker of Marc Lion and fellow English teacher at NPHS, admired his thoughtful ways of teaching. “When I was his department chair, I had the opportunity and pleasure to go into his classroom and observe his teaching. When you’d walk in there, it would be quiet because the students were working except for the sound, some soft jazz playing,” Hodson said.
Marc Lion was always looking for ways to help his students grow and learn. “Mr. Lion was really a conceptual teacher. He never stopped thinking about how he wanted to evolve some practice in the classroom…He had extreme compassion for the people around him,” Hodson said.
Music
Marc Lion’s passion for music was a part of him that was hard to miss, especially for Sandra Lion. “Well, we love the Motown, you know the Motown music and we love like R&B. Like, you know, just the bands that were good dancing music…Marc would be a better dancer because he knew everything about music. That was his passion too, his music,” Sandra Lion said.
Michelle Saremi, friend and coworker of Lion, specifically loved their musical connection. “I think most importantly the thing that we really shared was our love of music. I was more classically trained and he was kind of like self-taught. He had a love for all music but he really loved classic rock, and he exposed me to cool songs and new bands or bands that I have never heard of before,” Saremi said. “And then I would expose him to something I was working on…I really loved the romantic period of classical music…I would come in with a piece I was working on…We loved playing for each other and we loved working on stuff together and jamming.”
John Abney, English teacher, fondly remembers when Marc Lion would bring his musical talent to the campus and make a joyful experience for his fellow staff members. “One time we performed “Somewhere over the Rainbow” for another teacher who used to work here years ago when she retired.
Personality
Saremi always looked forward to her conversations with Marc Lion due to the liveliness he brought to a conversation. “He was always very funny, and we enjoyed roasting each other. He had an equally sarcastic humor as I…he had a lot of dirty jokes…I enjoyed sharing them with him,” Saremi said. When asked what word Saremi would attach to Lion’s overall personality, she chose the word optimism. “His optimism was contagious,” Saremi said.
Sandra Lion loved all of her husband’s qualities, but most of all, she appreicated his sense of humor. “He always would make me laugh. He would come out with things that I wouldn’t expect. Also the ways we would finish each other’s sentences or say the same thing at the same time,” Sandra Lion said. “He was just very kind and he always made me feel loved and cared for and he was always available.”
Abney remembers the impact of Marc Lion’s presence during everyday life. “He was the type of guy that would drop everything he was doing to help you out. He always had a listening ear. He always saw things in a positive light or tried to put things in a positive light…Lion loved his job. He loved what he did,” Abney said.
Marc Lion’s students, fellow teachers and his wife all felt the extreme compassion that he had for the people around him, and they undoubtedly returned the feeling. “He always like always smiling. Always responding, always sharing, always totally engaged. And just never complaining. When he got sick, he never complained. People love to talk to him because he just was always in a good mood,” Sandra Lion said. “His favorite saying was, ‘First write it, then write it right.’ He made a lasting impact that has changed them forever. It just was easy. We always did everything. He did everything for me and I did everything for him…. It’s going to be really hard getting a new life, a different life,” she said.
Having composed a poem for the eulogy, Lucia Lemieux, fellow English teacher, reflects on her writing process. “I was asked by his wife to write a poem…and I was very happy to do it. It took me seven and a half revisions to get it right…It’s mostly about what a good friend he was to me and how as I walk down the hallway here and walk past his room I still sometimes see him sitting there and so from that perspective is where I started the poem,” Lemieux said. “A lot of people loved him for his humor, and I did as well, but I was notoriously horrible about getting his puns and so I mentioned this in the poem; we got to a point where he would say a pun and he would start timing me until I laughed. I put that in the poem too because I was really lame at getting puns.
Lemiuex, in the poem, also comments on other aspects of her friendship with Lion, including their comforting and intellectual conversations. “We would have some very deep conversations about life and what happens later and you know, things in the world, difficult things, the challenges of teaching, the challenges of difficult students, the challenges of just the profession in general, and relationships. You name it; any kind of deep subject…we could get down to the nitty gritty really easily. I don’t think most people knew that about him; he’s incredibly smart and he read a lot,”
Lemieux said.
