At the start of my first year in high school, I had a full beard and was nicknamed Abraham Lincoln. I also had a seizure disorder, but that was a lot less obvious. My medication at the time didn't control my seizures, so I rarely went out for fear of having one. I didn't tell any of my friends and was always embarrassed when I had a seizure in public. I never hurt myself seriously, although I fell down a flight of stairs at home during one seizure and cut my head on a concrete sidewalk during another.

Read More: What to Do If Someone Near You Is Having a Seizure

Overall, high school was a tough time for me. I missed a lot of days because of uncontrolled seizures, and one year my parents took me out of school for several weeks so doctors could run tests on me. The few bright spots were provided by several teachers. I remember my English teacher telling me she skipped school one time when she was a kid to attend a Beatles concert. Somehow that made me feel less bad about all the school I was missing. Another teacher shared my interest in the local newspaper's weekly football score contest. She would join me in making a prediction or two.

I've been thinking a lot about those teachers recently, and I regret that I never thanked them for taking an interest in me or told them how much they meant to me. I even looked up a few of them online. I sent a message to one through Facebook and connected with another through a relative.

In reminiscing about them, I was inspired to rework the lyrics of the 1960s pop hit “To Sir, with Love,” the title song from a 1967 movie of the same name about an influential teacher.

Those schoolboy days
Of drills and writing skills are gone
But in my mind
I know they will still live on and on
How do you thank someone
Who has taken you from pretension to reading comprehension
It isn't easy but I'll try
If you wanted the sky
I would write across the sky in letters
That would soar a thousand feet high
To Miss Neidigh and Miss Hartley, with love
To Mrs. Greenwalt, with love

I was able to graduate from high school after a neurologist found a medication for me that controlled my seizures. I went on to work at a nonprofit organization as a bus driver, transporting developmentally disabled adults to and from a day care center. I don't have children, but I consider those passengers family.

Josh Abellives in Hagerstown, MD, where he’s a package handler for a ground transportation company. In his free time, he pursues his passion for genealogy.