Only four weeks ago, ns was be safe in a cabin in Tennessee, reading children’s literature because that a class. It to be a regular spring break, and while i was enjoying the moment with my family, i was likewise ready to watch my university housematesagain.
You are watching: I will not say do not weep for not all tears are an evil
But that’s when I first heard we wouldn’t be comes back, at the very least not till March 30 — and the impending dread set in together colleges throughout the country began sending studentshome.
We all understand by now what happened in the following weeks, consisting of the expected yet disappointing news we obtained last week: we will not be return to campus to finish the spring semester. Together a senior, it hurt to review those words. The course of 2020 has actually spent the last four years discovering to love the people and the places of our small corner in Michigan, and to love one another. Now, occasions that we cannot fully explain and also can execute nothing to change have cut short our timetogether.
We can’t commiserate over papers and final exams in the library. Us can’t dance the night away at Centralhallapalooza. Us can’t grab some victory ice cream from A.J.’s on the last day the classes. The course, we’re grieving this loss, and that’s OK. We shouldbe.
J.R.R. Tolkien knew we required to enable ourselves to feeling sadness. In one particularly poignant passage at the finish of “The Return the the King,” Frodo is about to sail away, leaving his friendsbehind.
“Well, right here at last, too ~ friends, top top the shores that the sea come the finish of our fellowship in Middle-earth,” Gandalf claims to the gathered companions. “Go in peace! I will not say: execute not weep; for not all tears space anevil.”
And this, especially now, is what we should remind ourselves: that no all tears areevil.
When we feel sorrow at the lack of good things, it shows we’re human. Loss, also if temporary, is something we start taking care of at a young age, so we recognize not to be surprised as soon as itcomes.
As a child, friends and I would certainly hide native whichever mother arrived to take one of us ago home after ~ a playdate. Surely, we thought, we can prolong the unavoidable by staying clear of the front door, but, in the end, there was always the sadfarewell.
Of course, we have to be careful around letting ours sorrow turn into ingratitude. For the seniors, as for others, Hillsdale has given us unique gifts, gifts that nobody of us deserved. In spite of the tears we may shed, we have the right to be thankful for the blessings bestowed top top us with friends, faculty, and localresidents.
But don’t fight your grief as if that a authorize of ingratitude. Let yourself be sad, and also give thanks for the blessing you’vereceived.
One afternoon this week, ns suddenly was get over with sadness in ~ the fact that I would not have an additional chance to sit external the library through friends, enjoying springtime and an excellent company. However this simultaneously brought ago memories of exactly what ns was grieved to lose. I recalled a time when I was lying on the grass, reading middle ages devotions for my middle ages literature class with Professor of English Justin Jackson. A girlfriend interjected and started posing questions about theology to those of united state there. It came to be one that the best conversations i have had about God’s love. And also it was the act of grieving that lugged this memory earlier tomind.
This season far from Hillsdale, at least for me, has actually proved to be something of a paradox: ns ache at the loss i experience, but that aching leader to remembering. Even past that, for graduating seniors, our friendships don’t end now. Us will continue to be in touch, also if it’s not the very same as beingtogether.
See more: What Is The Coefficient Of The X4-Term In The Binomial Expansion Of (X + 3)12?
As Saint-Exupery’s little prince tells the narrator, “when her sorrow is comforted (time soothes every sorrows) you will be content that you have known me. Girlfriend will always be myfriend.”
Nolan Ryan is a senior studying English. That is the editor-in-chief of TheCollegian.