Hope College, Second Week, Spring Semester
I opened my classes with silences. Two beloved Hope students died in a terrible small plane crash on foggy freezing Sunday and my small college is reeling.
I opened my classes with silences, because at noon on Tuesday when my students filed in the door, and took their seats, I had tears in my eyes. They are so young, so beautiful, so earnest and laden-down and alive in loss.
There is Haiti. There is so much, always. DJ in Afghanistan. His father sent me photos. I’m reeling, still. DJ walks through an abandoned town in the most dangerous province maybe in the world, “clearing” it of Taliban. Twelve Marines died. DJ is living in a hole in the ground during this mission. He hasn’t had a hot shower or washed his clothes in six months. He lives in a hole. I am on the verge of tears many hours these days. The verge seems like the only place to be.
I opened my classes with silences. In large part, for me. So I could feel a presence other than pain, for a moment. And then try to guide us through our work in a writing class: tell the truth.
At my noon class, the silence was filled with the chapel bells, next door. At 1:30, no bells. A moment filled with the beep-beep-beep of a utility truck, trying to line up a cherry picker with an oak tree. It wasn’t silent. But it was something.
Last night, right before the women’s basketball game, the president of the college came out on to the shining wood floor. The stadium was packed with a record high attendance, over three thousand. The room grew silent and the president said the names of the students who had died. His voice cracked and the quiet grew profound, deep, and strong. We stayed quiet. Then there was a prayer. And then the life force, those amazing women, playing hard, sweat and shouts and the crowd, and the ref just letting them play.
There is no place I would rather be: this is Hope. In a small town in the Midwest on a dark winter night.
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