UPPER ARLINGTON, Ohio — At his home, a favorite Neil Young song spins on vinyl. On the floor beside his favorite chair, a basket holds sympathy cards.
At Chris Collaros’ office inside Wickliffe Progressive Elementary School, it looks the same. Penguins and Steelers still celebrate Pittsburgh on the shelves. His office wall is still littered with the best kind of mess; well wishes from students.
"He wasn't just a principal," said Mia Kourlas. "He was a friend to everyone here."
"When we came into school... that will make me happy just a friendly 'Hi' from a friendly face," said Oliver Reim.
And that's what makes it difficult to let go.
"I think you could look around the United States or in the world and you wouldn't find as good of a principal as he was," said Wally Swiney.
Their principal, Chris Collaros.
"He was the face of our school," said acting principal Julie Eirich. "He was everything to us."
Eirich stepped into the biggest of shoes. She had to — quickly.
"We weren't really expecting that he would get cancer," Kourlas said. "I don't think anyone was really expecting it."
The things we least expect tend to hurt the most. For this school, it hurt down to the day.
"I will never forget this," Eirich said. "This will be forever embedded in my heart — it was Labor Day weekend."
Collaros was diagnosed with lung cancer that had metastasized to his liver and spine. Seven months later, he was gone.
"He was the love of my life," Sharon Collaros said. "He's the man who made me believe in myself."
Sharon and Chris would have celebrated 30 years of marriage in July. From day one, she says he approached his diagnosis with that same Collaros attitude.
"He immediately said 'I'm gonna be with my family. I'm gonna enjoy it and we're gonna fight this,’" she said. "And, so we did. What else do you do?"
It's who the Collaros family is. They're fighters. All of them; Chris, Sharon and their daughters Zoe, Sophie and Maria.
Every family has a favorite pastime. For this family, it was music.
Chris Collaros played in bands. One of which, appropriately enough, was named "Principally Speaking."
"He would always do this thing where he'd be like, 'Everyone stop talking and listen to this part right here, right here,’" said Zoe Collaros.
His love for music he took to his classrooms.
"He played guitar and he would always play the Beatles songs," said Zoe Kourlas.
His voice, like his personality, was big. But teaching is his legacy. And, predictably, he's still handing out lessons.
"Chris taught us so many things and yet in his fight with cancer he was able to authentically teach us about death," Eirich said.
"He helped me be happy more and he helped me to learn to love out loud," Swiney said.
Love. Out. Loud.
"It kind of means to show your love and let people in," said Zoe Kourlas.
Chris Collaros' daughter, Maria, adopted the phrase after the diagnosis.
"I felt like that's what everybody was doing," she said. "Making it very clear how much they loved him and our family and expressing it all out loud."
At Wickliffe Progressive Elementary, memories of Chris Collaros take on the form of posters.
"He's always gonna be there because we're gonna remember our awesome principal that loved the Beatles," Zoe Kourlas.
"Just the compassion he showed for others... our best hope is that will be carried forward," Eirich said. "It's beautiful."
He lives in the hearts of his students who take his memory and move forward making it a little easier to let go.
"When I'm older someone will say, ‘Hi,’ in a happy voice and it will remind me of my elementary school principal," Swiney said.
Chris Collaros' children say when he attended Princeton, he graduated in the same 1985 class as Michelle Obama. They say he always told them he knew a friend that knew Obama, personally. His daughters say they always believed him. Sort of.
"He never joked about it," Sophie said. "He was serious, but he didn't have like the names. He said it off-handedly."
Collaros passed away on April 6. A couple days later a piece of mail arrived at the house. Thinking it was political throw-away mail for the 2020 election, the Collaros family said they almost threw it away.
Instead, they opened it.
Inside, a hand-signed letter from Michelle Obama, expressing her and Barack's well-wishes during his fight with cancer.