That night, November of our first year, when we used Elizabeth Warren for Senate signs to slide down the hill of Freshman Field. Those to-go meals from Crossroads because we were afraid to be seen in Kimball alone. All the weekends we waited by the doors of upperclassmen buildings. Sunbathing on Easy Street the first day the temperature hit 60 degrees. Thursday nights on the shuttle from Blackstone, three to a seat, appreciating the good times as they were happening. The moment we questioned how someone so important ever was a stranger. December of senior year, huddled in the dark on the Hoval, crying, looking around at the clock and the towers and each other, wondering how we got so lucky, how we ever made the life-shatteringly perfect decision that will always be the College of the Holy Cross.
When we look back, it's clear. Holy Cross is not a place, it’s a feeling. It’s the feeling of driving onto Linden Lane, and sensing the trees around us, and realizing that this is both the most real and surreal setting in which we have ever found ourselves.
These four years have made things more complicated, more chaotic, more dysfunctional than I thought possible … in an unbelievably good way. I went out the night before exams. I planned immersion trips more thoroughly than I did my future. I pushed my furniture out of the way and filled my room far beyond its occupancy limit. I ran low on dining dollars and lived off meal swipes. I hung out with my roommates and had nothing 'productive' to show for it. I appreciated that college is one of the few times in life where being a little cliché just might mean we’re doing it right. I wondered what became of that boy in my ID picture with the shaggy hair.
I don’t believe Holy Cross has solved the mysteries of my life or has provided me the answers I’ve been looking for. But being here, with these people, for this time, has given me a place where I can talk politics over dinner and work to makes things better and write articles people sometimes read. It has given me invites on Facebook for events I might actually attend, and people that are interested and interesting. It has given me the belief that we are all struggling, but we are struggling for something that matters and is important and just might make a difference if we let it.
My fear of next year isn’t of getting a job or finding an apartment. It’s not of growing up or paying bills or making decisions without calling Mom. It’s of losing this.
Years ago, on one of those days which I would give anything to have back, my grandfather told me that goodbyes are too sad, goodbyes are too loaded, goodbyes are too final. They signify that something is over, a harbinger of the end. Instead, reverting to his old firefighter lingo, he proposed we say “over and out.” It’s how we parted ways after every car ride, how we ended every phone call. It’s the words we traded when I moved to Worcester in August and in January. It’s the way he signed all 162 of the letters he wrote to HC Box 891.
It's the very last thing we said to one another.
Looking back, it was his way of acknowledging we may not have forever, but we have now. We have here. We have this.
As I try to make sense of having a cap and gown, of being an alum from the Class of 2016, of "Commencing," I keeping going back to those three words. Soon I’ll be leaving this place, this Holy Cross. Yet, when I think of letting go I realize my grandfather was right. It’s impossible to say goodbye to something that has meant so much, that might mean everything. So in a few days, as we pack our carefully decorated rooms and promise to keep in touch with everyone from our closest friends to the girl we sat next to once in the library, it’s “over and out” I’ll have in the back of my mind.
Just as I save my grandfather’s books and his glasses, his car, his stories and his voicemails, these four years too will fall under memories and lessons which I keep with me always.
Not only because we will keep in touch, meet up at Homecoming, live in the same cities, and frequent the same bars. Not only because we have enough foolish anecdotes to keep our kids occupied for years. Rather, the spirit will remain because Holy Cross has always been about discovering, in the face of this wild and crazy existence, 'how then, do I live?' It didn't always seem so in the midst of common requirements and mandatory lectures in Rehm, but solving this puzzle has always been our purpose. And just like our silverware and our pictures, our notes from friends and our phone chargers, we take our answers with us when we leave.
Someday, we’ll be driving on 290. Maybe it’s been a year, maybe it’s been five. Maybe the promotion worked out, maybe times are hard. Maybe we’re annoyed because life is so messy and contradictory. Maybe our questions outnumber our answers. Maybe we think it would be easier to leave our morals and values in Kelley Square to fend for themselves.
But then Mount Saint James comes into view. Exit 11. We think of cutting across three lanes of traffic to make the turn onto College Street. Or we spot someone in a grocery store with a purple hat and a familiar logo. Perhaps we find ourselves searching the Holy Cross Magazine, not for personal candids, but for wedding and birth announcements. In those moments, I hope we remember our mission is the same and our marching orders still stand. Holy Cross is the idea that if we work hard, really hard, and treat people with respect, if we learn to live with others, are humble and thoughtful, and have fun along the way, we might earn a B+.
But that’s still pretty good.
For four years I’ve struggled to articulate what Holy Cross means to me. I failed to put into words why I saw that white envelope in the mail and knew my decision was made. I found myself reduced to generic phrases, trite expressions, and botched explanations of what makes this place so special.
I think my shortcomings show there isn’t a way of saying it. It’s not exactly the people, not exactly the place. It’s the crucifixes in every classroom and recognizing faces without knowing names. It’s the way we hold doors for too long. It’s endless lines for chicken parm, short lines for country fried steak, and two bowls so we can shake our salad without the lettuce flying out. Its talking to underclassmen through the gaps in the walls of The Pub. It’s WET PAINT signs. It’s having 15 emails when we leave a 50-minute class. It’s the stairs, the ivy, the Exorcism Room, the Hand of Christ.
It’s the wind.
Over and out, my Holy Cross.
