My first college class fit so accordingly to the private Baptist university I attended: Bible Survey. I had a few minutes before my next class started, and I remember wondering what to do next. Walk back to my dorm? Go to the student center? Go to class early? (Absolutely not. Then that opens the door for small talk! Which by the Tuesday after move-in day, I was small talk-ed out.)
Without much thought, I decided to make my first stop at Grandma’s office as a college student.
As most everybody I’ve ever spoken to or has read my blog knows, growing up two minutes away from Ouachita’s campus was a family affair. The only job I remember my dad having before the flower shop was on campus, and I only ever knew my grandma Marsha working there, too. For most of my childhood, her office was tucked away at the end of the second floor hall of Cone-Bottoms. Her desk was so perfectly placed – when Mom took me to visit, Grandma would immediately see us round the corner off of the staircase all the way down the hall. And as if on cue, her face always, always, always erupted into the most theatrical look of surprise. By the time we had walked to her door, she was out of her chair, waiting to hug and kiss us both.
Even before coming to Ouachita as a student, some of my sweetest memories were spent with Grandma in that office. I enjoyed hearing stories of her student workers, admiring their work space and the pictures of Grandma’s sweet dog she hung up for them to see. (One of those student workers actually handmade my infamous Kris Allen t-shirt, which I so stylishly donned to the American Idol Tour Concert with my parents and their friends. Another one of her student workers was a familiar face and kind soul on the biggest international mission trip I’d ever been on, and I still smile when I hear from her!) Grandma’s office always had yearbooks and recruitment pamphlets, both of which I loved to pour over and imagine what mine would one day look like. (She was actually who gave me my first Ouachitonian yearbook – the book I sat on my bedroom floor and read out loud when nobody was listening.) And I came to know many of Ouachita’s friendly faces as I sat at her desk, notedly Dr. Poole.
One of my favorite memories however was my senior year, the year before Grandma and I made the big move to a new home on campus: my freshman year and her transition to being Dr. Root’s dean’s secretary. It was first semester, and I had taken my last ACT a few weeks earlier. I had parked in one of the back spots of Cone-Bottoms, entering through that familiar back door, winding my way up the stairs and into her office for a mid-afternoon visit. At that point, Ouachita meant something so different than it does to me now – I knew Cone-Bottoms only as where I’d go to visit family. It smelled, felt, and sounded like afternoon visits and distant childhood memories. But, of course, I still know it now as visiting family, just in a different way.
The chairs in the Office of Academic Affairs sat to the right of Grandma’s desk, against the wall. I was telling her about this scholarship I wanted so badly to get. Each school on campus gave one a year – a full tuition scholarship, an incredible gift I couldn’t imagine receiving. And my school didn’t have an application or anything for reference. All I knew was that a certain ACT score would propel me into greater consideration…and that last-chance ACT score I was praying for was just days, if not hours away from landing in my mailbox.
I remember as I told her this, Grandma’s eyes lit up as she realized something. She twirled her chair back to the computer and started typing. And there it was. My brand new, shiny and sweet, heart-stopping ACT score. Ouachita received it first, and Grandma was there to help me scheme a way to tell my parents! Such a sweet memory.
I think when I went to Ouachita that next year, I didn’t realize the gift that J had given me by allowing my grandma to be my dean’s secretary, to be a facet in my life every single day throughout those four years. That first day of school, I remember it being such a sweet, calming realization that I had her office to go to. In Grandma’s new office, the chair sat right in front of her. When I first walked in after Bible Survey, I pulled the chair out and dumped my pink backpack on the ground beside me; Grandma placed her glasses on her desk calendar and leaned forward, listening.
Over the next four years, that office became more consistent in my life than anything else. The scratchy black chair became a home. I sat and told Grandma stories of my very first Tiger Tunes, breathlessly filling her in on the ins-and-outs of our nightly practices and repeating over and over again the names of my new friends. I brought every package I ordered for myself into her office to unpack and store while I went to class – Kate Spade purses, new shoes, Julia Engel’s winter coats, J. Crew sweaters…I never had much patience with opening my packages, and her office was a fabulous storing location. Her desk served as a mailroom of sorts for me – she left snack mix for me for after class, notes from professors were left, papers were printed with hearts on sticky notes for the mornings I ran late. I’d send my papers the night before with subject line “Please print :)” and signed “Your best friend” or just “Adeline.” (My favorite mornings were when I flew into Lile Hall, late and in need of a printed essay. And there stood Marsha outside the double doors of her office, holding my stapled paper out, prepared for my tardiness. All she would say is “Here, little Adeline. I love you!” and watch as I plummeted up the stairs.)
That room heard stories of potential dates and solidified heart breaks. I whispered drama between my friends, secrets I heard buzzing on campus, plans for the future. She helped me find my inspiration for the yearbook, and I will go to my grave saying that book would’ve never been printed if not for her. I skipped class (and told her it was cancelled) just so I could sit in that chair just a few moments longer – it was worth it every time, even if Profe Lambeth caught me afterwards. I would bring her Chick-Fil-A cookies, which she would take one bite of and save the rest for later as I scarfed mine in one swallow. Her office was the pit stop on my mail runs the summer I worked for the president, taking much longer than needed. And I texted her while in class. I especially liked doing this when my class met in the conference room connected to her office – that way I could hear her laugh out loud when my message arrived on her phone. She came to love my friends – specifically Jack and Mason – and so I came to learn how to share my time with her…sometimes. I loved when people told me how they loved my grandma, but I also felt the need to remind them that she is, in fact, mine by blood. Still, I came to love so many of those who love her – Jacy, I’m talking to you.
On my last day on campus, I knew in my heart that we wouldn’t be coming back. I knew where I wanted my last stop to be. How else would I want to spend those last hours than sitting in my chair, talking to my Marsha?
Gabe and I ate one last Chick-Fil-A lunch at her desk, filming videos of her on Snapchat with those hiccup-giving hilarious filters that made her voice sound like a mouse and sending them to our cousins. I sat there for two hours, feeling so sad but so loved. And then I left, closing the door on my chapter entitled: “Going to College With My Grandma.”
If walls could talk, that room would sure have some dirt on me. But of course, there’s always the chance that Dr. Root heard every word, too.
Here is the most beautiful, meaningful, and timeless scribble that Savannah Murphree @scribblesbysav did of the moment I had with my grandma each and every day. I will treasure this forever and always.
Xo. A
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