She taps her foot like a metronome as she sits all cuddled up in her black vest. Her limbs are all loose and comfortable giving a sense of calmness and ease. With her ear to ear smile and a friendly face she has an approachable presence.
Ms. Tomillo, a Physical Education teacher at West Leyden, is one of the realest people you’ll meet. With her great sympathy and pure heart, she’s showing her roots to who she is today.
Everything always came easy to her until unexpectedly, a big piece of her life was taken from her. With hands that can’t sit still, she says, “Right before my senior year of high school, my best friend who, since I was like four, randomly got ALS and passed away for my senior year.” (ALS is a terminal illness that slowly makes nerve cells break down).
Despite her young age, Ms. Tomillo was faced with a hard loss that left her in confusion. She avoided eye contact and after deep thoughts, she nervously told the following: “At first it was hard to comprehend,” She explained, “I was still only a senior in high school, and that was the first person in my life my age that has passed away. So at first I avoided talking about it, and I still kind of do a little bit, but I feel like as time goes on, we get a little bit better at it.”
It was deeply rooted into her mind and with a sense of longing she got tense and recalled, “We had a football game for her one month into school and that was just something I would never forget, because of everyone’s emotions in that moment. Because she was the nicest person ever, and only the second person in the world to get what she got.”
Her golden hair flowed down her head like a waterfall of sunlight as she reflected, “It’s like, you never know what could happen. And especially because, the first six months of her being sick, they told her it was something that she was gonna be fine one day. Then a week before she passed away, they said it’s actually ALS, and then she died the next week. So that definitely changed my whole outlook on everything, because you never know what could happen.”
Throughout this hard time she found it difficult to cope, yet she said what helped was, “To see how everyone came together and really honored her. I think that helped everyone a little bit. Because, she was, it sounds awful, but like she admitted she was ready to go, because this was not the way she wanted to live life. So definitely, everyone coming together helped everyone a lot.”
Later that year, she faced another roadblock when she remembers, “My parents told me I wasn’t going to college because they couldn’t trust me to go with my grades because they thought I was going to fail out. So I had to work hard to get a scholarship to pay for a year of my school, and then they finally agreed that, since I had that, then I could go.”
Ms. Tomillo was an elite basketball player that holds regret. The pain in her eyes showed when she said, “The fact that I ever gave up any sort of sport when I got a chance to play, really bothers me. So I tell all of you guys, anytime you tell me you’re gonna quit something, I’m like, don’t, you’ll regret it forever.”
Now that she’s settled in as a teacher, she loosens up and explains,“Now I have 90 kids’ lives in my hands all day long, and I need to step it up every single day. And the hardest thing about teaching, which, I don’t think you guys always realize, is we have to come to school every day and put on a show for you guys. It doesn’t matter what’s going on at home or what’s going on outside of school. We have to come here and teach you guys and be okay for you guys.”
Despite Ms. Tomillo’s hard journey, she’s only getting started. From her sorrowful experience of losing her friend, to her exciting job as a teacher, she’s destined for more. With her calm and inviting attitude, she is bound to build strong connections and create countless opportunities to accomplish her goals. All while having that ear to ear smile.
