classes

My sister sent me a text message the other day about a mouse and mouse nest her husband found in the glove box of their car. Um yuck. I can understand why it might happen. They live in an urban area and park their car in a garage that can easily be rampant with mice, as theirs has easy access from outside. He told her he has had that happen before and that their mechanic indicated that the mouse is able to get into the glove compartment through the engine.

However they arrive my sister and I both share a similar exclamation that we NEVER want to be the ones to open the glove compartment and have a mouse stare back at you. Especially if you are driving down the road and reach over to grab something from the glove box (yes, safely…but admit it you have done it before). If I was driving, and open the glove box, and see little eyes staring at me, I might drive off the road. Yuck, yuck, yuck.

It reminded me of a memory from when I was a freshman in high school. My sister was away for her senior year at boarding school (and she might have been home on break, I do not remember). I do know I was a freshman based on the apartment we were living in – if you can call it that. At the time, my mom was recovering from months in the hospital, and then months in a nursing home. We were broke, and somehow she had found a way to go back to school. Due to her classes, we were eligible for a small apartment (600 square feet), that was government subsidized. While I have no reason to complain, it was drab, drab, drab. The walls were made of cinder blocks, and most of the windows were high up (since we were on the first level due to my mom’s wheelchair).

I digress. The real intent of this story is that one day when I was making dinner for my mom, I opened the broiler drawer at the bottom of the stove. (Now let me assure you, we rarely used the boiler aspect of the oven. As it was, it was not a full size stove/oven. As Chris can attest I have never been great at cooking so I can only imagine what I was making for my mom in the broiler.) Yikes. What I saw looking back at me was not at all what I expected. It was a hamster, wood shavings and all. I freaked out, shut the door, and to this day I cannot remember what we did. Did I call the management company? Did I call a neighbor that had more confidence with critters than I did at 15? I think I did call the neighbor that had a ferret (who also irked me).

My sister’s mouse reminded me of the hamster that had been living in our stove. We believe it might have been from a neighboring apartment and been living in the walls. It makes you think a bit more about those scratching sounds you might have heard in the walls the other night…

I was thinking recently about a resident counselor I had in college. She was always a support to me and all the other girls she had to keep an eye on. But one memory stands out about how she went above and beyond for me.

It was my senior year and just days before my graduation. My college graduation felt very underwhelming to me. I had finished four years of college and could not wait to be done and move on with whatever was next. It was bittersweet. It would be the first “big moment” that neither of my parents would be there to see. My mom had been gone for 6 years and my dad had passed away in January of that same year. My graduation was just a few days after my 22nd birthday.

My resident counselor cleared me from my classes and final exams and took a friend and me into the city to play for the day. She told us she needed to run by the mall. I thought nothing of it. Once inside she told me that for my birthday she was going to get me a graduation dress. Looking at my good friend’s face, I knew she was in on this surprise. While I had other dresses I could have worn for my graduation, it meant a lot to me that she thought how hard this time must have been for me. To have it be my first birthday with no parents at all, and to know that I was accepting my diploma with no parents watching in the audience. It felt right to have a new dress for the occasion and, while I was slightly embarrassed, I went with it. We found a dress and then went to eat and be together. I do not remember much about that birthday with them, but I remember the dress and how loved I felt.

I had family at my graduation. My grandma, sister, brother, and my mom’s cousin were all there. Great friends came from Michigan to see me and witness this big day in my life, but it was still hard. There were definitely moments where I felt like this is not the way my college graduation was supposed to go. In many ways I wanted it to be over as fast as possible. Sometimes we never know how much a gesture of kindness can matter to someone else.

I still remember the exact dress I picked out that day.