Our family
spent some time up on Lookout Mountain in Georgia on our way to Florida this
past week. Chris and I both graduated
from Covenant College, so we were eager to show the kids around; maybe share
with them a little bit of our past.
We had a
captive audience, and my husband was the first to take advantage. He brought everyone up to the second floor of
the infamous Carter Hall ready to show the kids his first dorm room.
He opened
the door and declared the room like a new father declares the name of a new
child. I could see the memories flooding
back, and admittedly, it was hilarious.
The kids
were unimpressed by the 10 by 12 foot room with just enough space for the
necessities. And so we moved on.
Chris spent
most of his time at Covenant on the “Ghetto,” the hall where many of the soccer
players grouped. Our entrance into the
Ghetto was one of the doors opening to glory, but still, the kids were
unimpressed. “And this is the room we
would gather in, and this is where I slept, and this is……” He was reliving glory days.
“So, like in
college do you have to go to school all day?”
This is the kind of important information Jrod wanted to be clear about.
Chris
explained that you go to class, but then you’d have time in between to sleep,
or play sports, or eat….
…..or study;
my boring contribution.
We ventured
up to my old hall. I walked down the
hall unassumingly, sure that I wouldn’t fall into the same time warp where my
poor husband found himself.
But then
there it was: my old dorm room. I lapsed worse than my husband, explaining
who lived in each room and how I had my room arranged. The kids stuck with me until I pointed out
which sink I used. The eye rolling began
except for little Lily who told me how cool my sink was.
Thanks,
Lily.
At this
point, my kids were still trying to grasp the whole concept of college, but I
didn’t leave much room for questions – I was on a roll pointing out the dining room,
the mail room, the Resident Director’s apartment, and the laundry room.
“You mean
you have to clean your own clothes?”
I was
immediately grateful for the ten years that Jrod has left at home.
My kiddos
followed me out of my dorm like little tourists. And so on we went.
I pointed
out my favorite class - Shakespeare at 7:45 in the morning, explaining that I
would have gone to that class at 7:00 A.M, it was that good.
“But who
would wake you up?”
Again, we’ll
need all ten years with Jrod.
Of course,
then, I couldn’t just show them where my favorite class was held, we had to walk
over to the class I used to dread.
And I
thought Chris’s doors into “Ghetto glory” were a little much.
I didn’t
care. I took them into the dreaded math
classroom. It was in this class that I
decided I was going to major in something with the most amount of reading and
writing and the least amount of equations and problems.
Both Ella
and Jrod acquired my math skills, or lack there of, so both empathized with
their mom in this department. I thought
it was funny that they actually felt bad for me; forget what mom does all day
for us on top of otherwise full days, but a math
class…..poor mom.
Chris and I
took them to the chapel. I began playing
the piano up on the stage, recalling the first time I played up there as a
short lived music major.
I was asked
to accompany the student body in singing the school’s hymn. Nerves rose up in me like I had never
experienced before, and I plowed through that hymn so fast that it was
literally un-singable. So, the lecturer
stopped me and the rest of the student body and asked me to play it at a more
reasonable tempo.
I switched
my major to English, promising myself I would never accompany anyone
again.
The irony is
that I lead worship on the piano each and every Sunday, and I absolutely love
it.
Next, I took
the kids to the building where I had an in depth conversation regarding my
Senior Integration Paper with two of my favorite professors. I pointed out the exact room where this
meeting took place.
I distinctly
remember one professor praising the subject matter and the detailed research
that was done. My writing teacher, the
other professor present, discouraged the actual writing of the paper,
explaining to me that even after five drafts, it was simply “a mess.”
I had the
option of writing another draft, correcting the enormous amount of grammatical
mistakes, and receiving an A. But, I was
a senior, and all that was standing between me and graduation, plus my
impending marriage to my best friend, was that paper. So, I settled (with no qualms) for a C.
Again, the
irony is that almost exactly one year later I was hired to teach high school
grammar and writing. My first year
students, quite unfortunately but rather obviously, learned very little as I
spent most the year trying to understand it all myself.
Embarrassingly,
a student would at times correct my pronunciation of a particular vocabulary
word. Instead of admitting my blaring
error, I would suggest that perhaps there were other ways to pronounce such
common words.
I mean
really.
After that
first year, the light went on. I
suddenly became a grammar fanatic (please don’t hold this blog to that fact); I
began seeing grammar errors everywhere and writing became to me, for the first
time, a new part of life. I enjoyed it so
much that I spent the next several years trying to spark the interest in as
many students as possible.
Several
years after I had left the school, I received a letter from one of my former
students who had taken the time to explain to me how thankful she was for my
class. In particular, she mentioned how
grateful she was for all the grammatical markings on her papers. It helped her later in her schooling to
really “get it.” Oh, the irony.
Before we
could conclude the tour, Chris and I knew couldn’t leave without the kids
seeing the gym. Athletics were a big
part of our lives in college, and the kids couldn’t wait to see it. They were particularly enthralled with the
fact that there was still P.E. available in college.
“P.E. and
lunch are my favorite subjects!”
That’s my
boy. Even as an eight year old, it’s
only taken him a few months to get through five books of Harry Potter, and yet
he is adamant that his gifts are in the area of lunch time.
Chris
pointed out each and every trophy that he and his soccer team received during
his four years at Covenant. The kids
were super impressed, to say the least.
“Mom, where’s
your trophy?”
“Well, Jrod,
mom didn’t get trophies, but I can totally show you where I tore up my knee
during a basketball game.”
They were
totally un-impressed, to say the least, and had no interest in my play by play
commentary of this particular moment in my life.
I was almost
back to our present reality until one other place caught my eye. I walked over to a large tree outside of one
of the buildings. The kids were ahead of
us, so I just shared the memory with my husband, the only victim left on my
prolonged journey into the past.
I explained
that this was the tree that I knelt under pleading with God not to take my dad’s
life since only moments before he had called with the news that they found a
rare kind of cancer in his liver. I stayed there weeping bitterly for a long
time. It was one of the times in my life
that I remember undeniably feeling the comforting presence of God.
In the midst
of twists and turns, laughable irony, and deep personal struggles and sorrow, God’s
Grace in my life and His sovereignty over it is remarkable to me, and sometimes
that reality strikes me deeply. Our
short journey into the past was one of those times.
As we were
leaving the campus, we told the kids we would take them down the mountain to
one of our favorite restaurants for dinner– one that I frequented during
college.
And then it
was Ella’s turn to ask a question: “You
mean, you’re allowed to leave campus when you’re in college?”
I’m glad
that we have several years of parenting before a college future; my need to be
in the present is a grateful necessity. And
yet today, I am truly thankful for my past.
