A Tale of Loss, the Gift of Good Teachers, and how I almost didn't graduate College. 

I’m going to spoil this story upfront: I did graduate college. I now have my Arts degree in English and I walked across that stage in front of my family and also across the screens of several of my faraway relatives. The tassel has been flipped, the diploma has been framed, and the degree has been earned.

After six years in University, it has been a relief to be out. The stress of quizzes, tests, and papers looming over this spot on my forehead has finally evaporated even though my internal clock still won’t let me sleep past 6:30 or 7 in the morning. In hindsight, it was a wonderful experience, and in some weird, twisted way, I miss it. But when I was in those classes, I held very different opinions. It’s hard, and I wanted to quit real bad. And my last semester is terribly great for explaining “real bad,” for everything came to a head in those months, and it got way worse before it got better.

It’s better now, of course, but in the thick of things, it’s hard to see the shore you’re looking to land on safely.

I.

It’s two days before my birthday, at the beginning of January, and I’m gazing out from the observation platform on one of my favorite places in this state, Brasstown Bald. It’s even more special because I’ve finally convinced (dragged) my best friend from the car up the steep half-mile path to the platform to show him what I’m totally nuts about. I think he enjoyed it, mostly, but perhaps won’t return unless I drag him up there again (Love ya, Mark).

It’s not bitterly cold like it’s supposed to be, at the start of 2019, on top of the tallest mountain in Georgia. And the sun is starting to descend casting weird, squirmy shadows on the surrounding hills. Everything is all lit up golden, and the air is crisp. I can see the Atlanta skyline nearly a hundred miles away, and it’s peaceful. Earlier in the week, in an attempt to cement my goals for the year, I’d set up a journal for two writing activities I planned on doing every day for the year, just to keep my pen in contact with paper. One called The 52 Lists Project and the other called The Creative Writers Notebook. I had been diligent thus far, and, as one might expect, the first list in that journal was to set goals. I kept them sweet and to the point saying 1) Graduate, 2) Learn to play Chess, and, the hardest one, 3) Move to Asheville. The first, I thought, would inevitably come, and the impending finish line loomed in my head even though the semester wouldn’t start until the next morning. The second would be my activity for after graduation and the third, well, that was what I was thinking about while enjoying the company of my best friend. And the company of the barren, leafless ridges.

I stroll in from a good day and unpack all of my camera stuff and begin to get ready for the next day, my last first day as an undergraduate. New folder, new color sharpie pens (they have to be sharpie, and they have to be color), two new single-subject notebooks, my tablet, and altoids. Since this semester involved a French class that met four times a week between the hours of three and five and my major Seminar class twice a week between eleven and one, my work schedule also flipped a bit. So my first destination in the morning was opening the pharmacy, then my last first day as an undergraduate student would begin. In bed with teeth brushed and face clean, I really felt like this year was going to be amazing, albeit slow and painstaking. The end of college nearing, I smile and fall asleep surprisingly easy.   

Every story typically has a conflict or two that erupts from the woodwork at the most inconvenient times. Sometimes it’s easy to overcome and get past, but the real thorny ones plant themselves like a mountain in your path, and the only way to get through it is to crest the top.  Great moments brand themselves into our memories so that we won’t forget the good feelings, even if we forget every exact detail. Dark moments sear themselves in our minds in quite the same way.

I don’t quite recall what I was in the middle of dreaming about when my sister came in, shaken and scared, and drove me out of sleep at 2:30 in the morning. She told me something was wrong as I got up, and, from the other room, I heard a commotion that rattled the sleepiness out of my eyes. I’m not for sure, but I have all the confidence in the world that hell is filled with looping audio recordings of parents weeping. To me, it’s one of the worst things in life to hear. 

Generally in my household, when the phone rings past 11 P.M., something terrible has happened to someone we love, and I naturally thought that my grandfather had passed away. Instead, we were all stunned to learn that it was not him who died, but my Uncle, someone we had seen a few weeks before during Christmas. In a lot of ways, we’re still stunned, but I didn’t realize, at the time, just how startling it was or how oddly I would digest that information over the next few months. My sister, my dad, and I, all still teary-eyed, gathered into the car and went to see my grandfather (Pop-pop, as we call him). A new normal had been reached since losing my grandmother (Mee-maw) a year before, and we are, likely, still in the midst of trying to reach that spot again.

Naturally, I go into work a few hours late that morning, given the events of the night before, and I contemplate skipping my opening French class to stay home (to do something of importance, a task of which I still have yet to put my finger on). My mother convinces me that that isn’t a wise choice, and so I begin my last semester of college with a droopy heart and a conflicted mind.

II.

My final French class was taught by the most wonderful of French teachers, one in which I should’ve had throughout my entire encounter with the French language in a classroom setting. Like most people, I struggle with language learning, especially given the environment I was in. A bad grade could’ve hampered my chances of graduating, but this Professor had techniques and little memory tricks to help us that my previous professors had failed to enlighten us with. Since this class was essentially two classes smashed into one, the majority of my class time was spent in that downstairs room, learning to think in French more than speak it.

Likewise, my Seminar class was supposed to be the bejeweled crown for my major in English. To some extent, I think it was. It was entitled The Rhetoric of Social Movements, and it seemed the more important choice to me given that my other two options were Chaucer or Other Medieval Literature. I immediately fell into the groove of this class mainly because I had taken this Professor before and really enjoyed her teaching. We read lots of primary documents from the Anti-Slavery Movement, revisited Women’s Suffrage, studied the endeavors of the LGBT community, and, to top it off, a final written paper in which we analyzed a movement of our choice and scrutinized its contemporary place in society as well as its rhetoric.   

Now, I had ideas when I laid out my goals for the year that I could sincerely dive into the depths of these last two classes and do honest work. It was just two classes, after all. The grind was cut in half from my usual four class workload, and I would have more time to devote to French and U.S. social movement rhetoric. What I’ve come to learn since then is that stress has a weird way of manifesting itself sometimes. The typical image of a stressed-out Sam involved tons of walking around aimlessly, chewing my fingernails, and, sometimes, exhaling the brevity of my vocal cords into a pillow. And that, for the most part, hasn’t changed. What was unexpected was all of the grayness. Walker Percy calls it “the malaise” whereas I, an aspiring Walker Percy or someone of that caliber, call it “crap and crap.”

Ever since exiting high school and entering college, I’ve had motivation. Whereas high school was a place where I didn’t exert a hundred percent of my energy into anything except marching band (where it’s über required that one give a hundred and ten percent a hundred percent of the time), college was a place of excitement. It was an environment where your energy directly correlated with your enjoyment of it, where your voice (should you use it) could be heard, and where your talents could be revealed and cultivated. And up until that point, my motivation never really wavered. Not even in math classes. But the past semester had an overwhelming grayness that plummeted my drive. When you’re working towards a sound goal, and your sinking boat finally capsizes, it’s difficult to pull that back up by the anchor. Beginning Spring semester starts with the cold, gray winter months already, and I honestly only had two things on my mind: getting out of college and getting to the mountains whenever possible.

Little things began to slip. Homework deadlines, of which there were plenty in Seminar and plenty more in French, slid right past and out of my sight-lines faster than I could recover them. French tests came back to me with unfavorable numbers on the front, and when my Seminar Professor would do a round of grading, zeros would stare me in the face. Silence would befall me in class discussions, especially in my Seminar, where participation was the majority of our grade. Some days, I would be just late enough for my mind to justify not attending class at all. The snowball effect kept becoming more prominent that eventually even the mountains, clad in clouds and leafless trees, seemed to suggest that I had more pressing priorities than keeping them company.

The scary part of the in-between moments of gray is that I can’t seem to remember what I did with my time. From January to the middle of March, I know I read some books, published some posts, and drove to campus, but I can’t remember specifics.

I do recall the day my butt connected solidly with rock, though. I remember the contrast of a high weekend and a low Tuesday. I remember morning clouds being pierced by the ridges of Appalachia on a Saturday morning and feeling the warmth of the rising sun. I remember driving back, feeling the best I had felt in two months. And then I remember being asked to stay after a Seminar class and my Professor sitting me down to ask me what was wrong. She both politely and adamantly informed me that I was failing her class. Sucker punch of reality number one. Calmly, we discerned an action plan to get me caught up, which would involve intensive work over the next three days. Though the situation was, to say the least, bad, she offered me her support. She said that she was growing concerned over my recent bout of stoicness, knowing my previous work ethic and participation. I left the room feeling cared for but not hopeful. At least a fire was lit under my seat. 

The scenario repeated itself a few hours later. My French teacher, calmly and politely, explained to me that I wasn’t going to pass her class unless something changed. This had become a nightmare at this point. A literal, God-awful nightmare, seeing the possibility of having to repeat the same two classes and tack on another semester to my already extensive education. On top of that, my anxiety of having no after-graduation plans hadn’t miraculously dissolved. Sucker punch of reality number two. Both on the same windy Tuesday. If I wanted to graduate and get on with life, I would have to recognize the flames I was in and begin to put them out with surefire quickness. This was the turning point.

My motivation began to resurface immediately, and I cranked out late assignment after late assignment (thanks to the grace of my teachers) on top of the current impending deadlines. I caught myself back up in Seminar in three days, fueled by none other than the coffee bean and the sheer possibility of having to go back in the Fall. French took a little longer, but I applied everything I had learned to the greatest possible level that I could. I still struggled, but I began to see progress (I still feel as though my French teacher took pity on me, giving me a B instead of anything lower).

Everything got better as the weather got warmer and the trees became greener. My final paper and presentations for Seminar shown in a multi-page study about Minimalism, a unique idea in that class. I used my acting skills to, mostly, stumble my way through French finals and somehow my teachers found the grace to see past my fallouts and glimpse thoroughly at my final efforts. Teachers like that deserve to be saints. Thank God for them.

My final audit went through, my assignments were turned in, the last day of class came, my cap and gown were donned, I didn’t trip going across the stage, we went to a Longhorns afterward, and now I sit here. Wondering how in the world 2019 is already ending.

III.

Back at Brasstown Bald, the mountain I’ve gone to (or fled to) many times in the last few years. It is, arguably, among the topmost stunning places in the State of Georgia, and the hike to it is very rewarding. As are many peaks in the Southern Appalachians, the summit is more than likely not visible from your starting point. If one approaches Brasstown from the South, winding up through Unicoi and turning west just before Hiawassee, all the hills and trees envelop the traveler in a natural wonderland, all the while climbing ever so steadily.

The breaking point comes when a little twisty spur road emerges in the trees, and the incline becomes very noticeable, and three miles later, turning a bend, the trees break, the bald sits to your right, and Wolfpen Ridge looms to the left. It’s here that one either climbs the remaining six-tenths of a mile trail, sidewinding up the bald or rests in a tram that shimmies up a steep road (but only in the warm seasons). Only here does the traveler see everything they couldn’t from the start. Carolina to the North, Atlanta to the South, ridges and valleys all about.  

It’s a little difficult for me to decipher the meaning of these stories. In one way, it seems as though my ideas for this year were too grandiose (therefore shatter-able), but in another, it seems that these situations were meant to teach me something.

Or maybe I’m just a little too self-absorbed (tongue firmly in cheek).

In one of his books, Donald Miller says, “the reward you get from a story is always less than you thought it would be, and the work is harder than you imagined. The point of a story is never about the ending, remember. It’s about your character getting molded in the hard work of the middle. At some point the shore behind you stops getting smaller, and you paddle and wonder why the same strokes that used to move you now only rock the boat.” It’s still kind of gray. Maybe I’ll look back at these twelve months in the grand picture and wonder why I couldn’t see past the trees.

I have a ton of sentimental memories with my Uncle even if I only saw him two or three times a year. He was funny and always put a high value on the good times, past and present and future. He hosted Thanksgiving and Christmas gatherings for the family in a house that was always a little too warm and the flatscreen would be playing the tunes of the season. We’d all joke and cut up for a long time whilst there, and I would typically be able to see my cousins and my grandparents. It was a treat every year to visit, and holidays just won’t be the same.  

His story has an interesting coda to it: we adopted his dog, a sweet and very unique little beagle named Bodhi (say “boe-dee.” Point Break anyone?). He loves to be around people, even though he doesn’t interact with them necessarily, and gets scared easily. But he’s the cutest little thing, making the other dog super jealous a lot of the time (not because he isn’t as cute. He just hates sharing the attention). I sit back and think how incredibly quick the sun could rise and set on a block of time, so fast that one would have to physically stop and find an armchair to just contemplate all that they’ve gone through. Maybe, when the coming December wind takes my Uncle’s ashes, I’ll understand, even if only a little bit, the saga that was 2019.

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“To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair.”

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Johnnyswim—Let It Matter

Sean McConnell—Running Under Water

The Federal Empire—Glory Days

Catch Me If You Can Cast—The Pinstripes Are All That They See

Josh Garrels—Train Song

Henry Jamison—The Rains

Gregory Alan Isakov—crooked muse