This is an I-Heart podcast.

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories.

It's time for our final thought series, where we bring you the final thoughts from loved ones to those who've passed.

An obituary, a eulogy, a note.

And today's comes to us from Lawson Bader, who paid tribute to his late teacher, Erica,

and he did it in the form of a letter to her brother.

Let's take a listen to Lawson and his letter.

Fall 2014.

Dear Eberhard, you and I have never met, but I knew your sister, Erica.

I'm sorry I missed her memorial service.

I did manage to go online and sign the obituary page, and I included myself in the Facebook

group, but I feel compelled to write this,

two years after her death because of what my family and I were just able to do.

You see, I was one of Erica's kids.

I know she had many of them, but I also think that I was part of Erica's kids. I know she had many of them,

but I also think that I was part of her original gaggle,

the ones who traveled with her to Germany that first time.

We were her guinea pigs, as she called us.

David was also in my class.

In fact, he and I had been in Montessori school together in the early 1970s.

I probably met Erica then, but I had no idea who she would become later in my life.

She changed my world.

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