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| From Frightened Rabbit to Honor
Graduate There were only 27 students in my high school graduating class. I grew up four miles from the village of Sun and one mile from a community we called Talleytown - but everyone else called it the boonies! My dreams of college had long been pushed aside for marriage and children. Now that my children were in school, those dreams finally became a reality as I entered college 16 years after high school. My pastor’s wife helped make this dream a reality by encouraging me to enter college with her. Taking the College Entrance Exam was a daunting experience for me¾ and getting registered was even worse! The registration lines (this was before the days of online registration) had more people in them than the whole population of my hometown! I was so confused and scared that I could hardly remember my own name. In fact, when I heard someone call for those whose last name began with “I—O,” I switched lines. Then a friend brought to my attention that Williams had always started with a W. Well, I consoled myself, “W” could possibly be considered an upside down “M”! Having survived registration, I was ready for the first week of classes, or so I thought. Still scared that my brain had atrophied during those 16 years of not being in school, I left for the first day of classes with my young son’s comment about my brand new college shoes ringing in my ears: “Well, Mom, when I look at your feet, you look young.” That first semester, I had one history class that I loved and breezed right through. The other ones, well, at least I lived to tell about them. I have always been terrified of speaking in front of people, so the only reason I had scheduled a speech class was that it was one of the only classes left with an opening, and it was being taught at night in my hometown. On the first night of class, the professor had us give a short speech introducing ourselves. I nervously rattled through a sentence or two and then quickly ran to my seat. The professor then terrified me even more by making me return to the front of the class as she announced to the class, “This is my example of what I call the frightened rabbit.” Turning to me, she said kindly, “Honey, the reason you almost passed out is that you weren’t breathing.” (At least I learned something in that first class.) The science professor had been drafted from teaching microbiology to grad students into teaching this freshman biology class. He sounded as if he were speaking a foreign language. I studied much harder for that first science test than I had studied during all of my entire high school years ¾and barely passed the test! Only a friend’s encouragement that the grades would have to be curved kept me from dropping the class. I was beginning to wonder if I could even pass anything in college. Maybe my brain wasn’t working any more. My first college algebra class was even worse than the science class. I don’t think the professor even knew a language. I headed straight for the drop/add office and switched to a “lower, easier” algebra class. This professor had a patch over one eye and glared at us with the other. She informed us in no uncertain terms, “ I will give you all that you need to make a ‘C’ in this class, but you are really going to have to work for anything else.” Then she proceeded to show us how she taught her calculus class. Calculus? I needed to start with 1 + 1, and she was putting calculus on the board? So back to the drop/add office I went and this algebra class, too, was dropped. What was I, a thirty-something mother of two, doing in college anyway? In between trying to keep up with two children, housework, husband, homework, church work, and more housework, I learned to live by a motto that I had learned at my children’s summer crusade: “Do your best and let God do the rest.” Sometime during that first nightmare of a semester, I realized that I enjoyed learning and that I really could keep up with those young things that seemed to breeze through their classes and not worry about grades. I even relaxed enough during the last year of college to sit in the back of the class with those who treated college a little less seriously than I. My children both enjoyed and endured the next 4 1/2 years of my college life along with me. They even went to a few classes with me, and I even used them for examples in some speeches. (One speech was on illiteracy, and I thought my younger son was a good example since he did not like to read.) They seemed to especially love the times that I had a big test. It was party time because Mom was too stressed and distracted to enforce the rules. They set up a whole band in the living room complete with drums and trumpets. They cooked all the frozen pizza that I had bought (they didn’t like that kind) and served it to all the kids in the neighborhood. Somehow in the midst of all the chaos they developed a respect for learning that is with them today as they pursue their own college and career dreams. While enduring and surviving (even the algebra class that I finally had to take), I never seriously considered giving up as an option, because I kept the dream of graduation always before my eyes. When graduation day finally arrived, it was all I had dreamed and more¾worth every struggle, all the expense, every drop of midnight oil. I had given my best, and God had certainly done the rest, as I was graduating summa cum laude. The magic of the moment was not even dimmed when my cap fell off my head, and some of the professors standing near had to pick it up for me. Not only could I breathe easily even at this somewhat embarrassing moment, I even joined in their laughter. How far that frightened rabbit had come, and how proud that freshman speech teacher would have been! Many years ago, I started the Christian school of life with a different graduation in mind. Though I have been through the “Though he slay me, yet will I trust him” test like Job, “the valley of the shadow” test like David, and my own small Gethsemane test, quitting has surely never been an option. In the words of Garfield and my pastor: “Big, fat, hairy deal.” For, you see, I have had a sneak preview of this graduation. I heard something about streets of gold, walls of jasper, gates of pearl, no more tears, no more sorrow, no more parting. I just have this feeling that it will be worth whatever I have to face to make this one. So let me go dream about it. Better yet, come dream along with me! ninetyandnine.com © 2002, Joy Williams --------- Joy Williams has been working as an accountant since graduating from college. Somehow the memories of all the drudgery of college seem to have faded as she entertains thoughts of pursuing a master’s degree in the near future. |
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