Glenbrook North Teacher Remembered for Passion, Optimism and Love of Children

Jodi Polikov connected with a huge network of people throughout her 41 years of life.

About 400 of them gathered at in Arlington Heights Monday morning to remember the life and mourn

Family and friends greeted and hugged each other; tears flowed before and during the service. Several youngsters huddled under blankets to keep warm.

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The community attending the one-hour service was broad, said Carl Wolkin, the rabbi at in Northbrook, who participated in the service.

"These words are for Jodi's family, which must be broadly, deeply defined to include family by blood and marriage, and a multitide of friends and others who are like family, and a host of others among them students whose lives she touched," he said. "You are all as one today, a community has sustained a huge loss."

To many, he continued, Jodi was a role model, a hero, an eternal optimist, the one who so many leaned on for strength.

She left "footprints on our hearts," Wolkin said. "Her life may have been far from complete in years ... but Jodi was complete and her life was complete ... She was giving and caring and sharing. She knew how to love, she knew she was loved. The pain will not readily lessen, or go away, but this fundamental truth of the completeness of Jodi and her completeness of life must be talked about all the days to come."

Polikov was a person of many likes: hot fudge sundaes, 3:50 p.m. Friday manicures, hair appointments, and people loved her sweet kugel, a Passover treat. She gravitated to children, a "child whisperer," who became a second mom to the friends of her two children, and whose home became a second home where children could play and be safe, said Steven Stoehr, Beth Shalom's cantor.

And she loved being a teacher. She was a resourceful, responsible and dependable person, according to a news release from GBN's principal Paul Pryma that Stoehr noted.

She was emulated by her colleagues and adored by her students. Witness a quote she got from ratemyteachers.com: I LOVE Ms. Polikov, I mean I really love her. She's the best teacher probably in that school, like hands down. If you ever need any help she's the person to go to."

, Stoehr said, a mere 60 hours after she fell ill at her home. In trying to understand the circumstances, he said, one can look at all of the material on it, but nowhere does it all convey what it does to the community and to the family. "It takes more than one life; it tears us to the core."

Stoehr spoke of the irony he saw in the fact that Facebook went public the day after Polikov died. "Jodi was Facebook. She connected people. Look at the network she built that is standing with you today. We all shared a common 'Like.' There are many vital circles in that life: peer groups, family, lifelong friends, students at Glenbrook North. She was all of this and more."

What do people in the end do with such a spirit, Stoehr wondered? "We nurture it by recalling her inextinguishable life force; her ideas and passions, and let her good works and time here continue. ... She lived her to the fullest; a life purpose that will live beyond her days," he said.

Tributes also flowed onto online sites. One student, Necayla Courtney wrote on the Legacy.com gestbook on the Chicago Tribune website, stating: "I am so sorry for your loss. Ms Polikov was the geratest teacher I could have ever asked for and she will forever live in our hearts. I am so grateful I met here because she has made me such a better person. May she rest in peace."

Marcel Grdinic noted on the same website: "I have many fond memories of Jodi from around Glenbrook North, always smiling, always helping, always joking. She was a wonderful human being."