I was procrastinating at work, scrolling down my newsfeed on Facebook, liking Instagram uploads and reading statuses on 20th May 2014, when my heart skipped a beat. A friend’s status upload said that Mrs Judith Khan, my English teacher for Grade 7 and 11 at Convent of Jesus and Mary had passed away.

I made some frantic phone calls to a couple of friends to find out more, who were just as shattered at this devastating news. Mrs. Judith Khan - the best that Convent had, had departed. I left for home immediately and scurried for my autograph diary I had gotten signed from her in 2005 when I had graduated from Convent, through piles of tampered dust-laden notebooks. There it was, her lipstick stain, as fresh as if she had signed it yesterday; her signature "A kiss from a miss" which every 16-year-old, graduating from Convent preserves closest to her heart. I contained my tears as I left to see her one last time at her house in Shadman.

I wasn’t Mrs Khan’s favourite student in class, neither was I the English guru who was an avid reader of books who scored brilliantly on her essays (I remember her once vehemently giving me copy of Wuthering Heights to finish with a deadline and I had failed desperately). I was one of those mediocre students who scored 18/30 on her essays; but it was students like me she touched the most. She recognised the diversity in us, honed what was lacking in each and every one of us, commented on every sentence in an essay she deemed inappropriate and appreciated every new word or expression we added to our vocabulary.

She didn’t just teach us how to write but encouraged us to imagine, put pen to paper from the heart and she said she’d do the rest. We felt empowered at creating something from nothing and became confident about our creations; we became important for ourselves.

She was more than just an English teacher. She was the mentor given to the girls at CJM at that juncture of their lives when most were rebellious, struggling with puberty years, having their share of bad friendships, most affected and belligerent about broken familial structures, muddled about what subjects to pursue, and Mrs Khan would change the way we perceived school life and life in general. Wearing deep maroon lipstick, a cheerful "Duh!" in her Scottish accent at our imprudent issues, she would solve everything.

She has changed the lives of countless students like me for the better for 18 years she has served at the institute, by teaching us to value relationships, and most importantly ourselves.

She was 17, in the year 1979, when her family moved to Pakistan from Scotland to her ancestral village in Gujranwala. Her father remarks that she was the only one out of her siblings who didn’t complain of the massive cultural shock his children faced after having virtually grown up in Glasgow.

The young Judith began her teaching career at Beaconhouse School System in the early 1990s. In ‘96, she joined Convent of Jesus and Mary and there was no turning back thereon.

Despite many lucrative offers, she decided to stay on at CJM till her last breath. Her two children, Haider, a doctor, and Kiran, an aspiring doctor, are an image of the wonderful woman that Mrs Khan was and the hard work she has put into bringing them up.

I can never forget a Sports Days at Convent which I co-hosted with her in 2003 -- she wore the "DJ Khan" badge on her left shoulder and had the audience in stitches with her commentary and occasionally poked me with her elbow to speak up but I would just be laughing uproariously.

I can never forget the day we went to collect our O level result from school in 2005 -- Mrs Khan stood there with a neatly ironed dupatta on her left shoulder, white joggers under her purple shalwar kameez beaming at her students as they came in: she had yet again maintained her streak of delivering 100 per cent A’s.

I can never forget the pride in her eyes when she told my mother "Mera puttar hun doctor bunn gya hai!"

I can never forget the energy and the enthusiasm she exuded whether in class or when you met her outside of school. I can never forget her.

I feel privileged to have graduated from CJM at a time she was at her eccentric yet conventional best. It is, however, deeply unfortunate for the students at Convent who will never be able to have an educator and a guide like her or a "kiss from a miss" in their autograph diaries.