A postcard arrived: 'If you're reading this I'm dead, and I really liked you'

"In a stack of mail on his dining room table, Jason Snape spotted a postcard from his former college professor. In clean, Helvetica type, it read: "If you're reading this I'm dead, and I really liked you." Next to the message was a selfie of Don Glickman wearing a serious expression, a hoodie and yellow aviator sunglasses. There's a hand-sketched portrait of him in the corner."

""It was the last thing I expected," said Snape, 56. After Snape got over the shock, he cracked up. "It made me laugh really hard because it was just so him," Snape said. "It went through the mail, so everyone along the way saw a postcard that said, 'I'm dead and I really liked you.' It turns out, this was one of more than 100 postcards that Glickman told his daughter to send to his favorite students and friends upon his death."

"Snape met Glickman in the late 80s at the University at Buffalo, where Glickman was his design professor. From Glickman, Snape learned to value substance over style and to see beauty in simplicity. "I trusted him as I navigated my way through finding an answer to a problem," Snape said. "We're all products of our professors in one way or another.""

Don Glickman arranged for more than 100 personalized postcards to be mailed to favorite students and friends after his death. Each postcard included a brief message, a selfie of Glickman wearing yellow aviator sunglasses and a hand-sketched portrait. Jason Snape, a former student, received one and laughed at the candid message and public declaration. Snape credits Glickman with teaching design principles and inspiring his own teaching career. The postcard plan originated during a conversation between Glickman and his daughter Leah while he was 93 and in home hospice in Anacortes, Washington. Glickman had congestive heart failure but remained mentally sharp.

Read at The Washington Post