It's funny how it hurts when you know God has answered your prayer, but you have to wait to actually see the results.
That was where I was a year ago
After having an exhausting yet fulfilling summer, I couldn't help but wish to be back at Notre Dame. It was a little taste of my heaven on earth, and I was forced back to reality. Although I loved Belmont and always will, the first two months back were extremely difficult.
When I got back to campus for my interview, I was worried that I had interpreted my god's answer wrong.
And yet...
Being back in the community I had loved so much brought me right back to where I was that summer.
One of my interviewers, a cancer researcher I had never met, said "you are actually what they say in their letters. I thought maybe you had written the letters for them to sign."
There was something about being back on campus that brought back the woman I loved so much. When I came back to campus, I felt at home. And when I got in to Notre Dame, I cried and called literally everyone I could think of. I held my head high for the rest of the school year.
I started Grad School, and I met some of the coolest people from all walks of life in both Biology and beyond. I started research again at the most chill lab with the most interesting mix of people. And while my research gave me fewer triumphs than failures, I still held on to the magic of this campus.
I could not quite tell what it was that made this place feel so...perfect for me.
And then this weekend happened
Friday evening, I watched HIMYM and The Scooby Doo movie with the girls from my cohort, and then we talked for hours. I don't know how from 40 women that us four would be selected for the Molecular Biology side of life, but I couldn't be more grateful. We are so different and yet we have so much to share.
Saturday morning to afternoon we joined the chemists at our concession stand. The amount of dogs and burgers we sold was astounding. And what was even more amazing was how we were constantly pumping each other up, as if I were back with the TT leaders at Belmont.
And then the moment I had been waiting for since I had a crush on an ND fan and actually watched the sport for myself:
I went to the football game.
It was comical how my friends and I struggled through nearly every cheer, victory march, and general football tradition. You think you know ND tradition when you watch every game and your parents give you Lou Holtz's book to read in middle school, but you really have no clue until your sandwiched between old law students and drunken sophomores who all seem to know everything, even though they have little in common on the surface.
Yet again they had something that brought them all together.
As I walked through the campus that night, after all of the fans had stumbled back to their cars and the students had left for their victory parties, a sweet stillness filled air. I stopped at the reflection pool and just stared at the water for a moment. I looked up and saw a few others doing the same.
And I got it.
What I had felt when I came back to Notre Dane, what I felt in the lab, what I felt simply by going to a simple movie night was one thing: a shared tradition.
The tradition of a community meant to build one another up, to reach the victory that each as human beings desire, to become what God wants us to be, that was what Notre Dame had fostered all these years.
In my lab we are all aware that science is riddled with failure. But my advisor has made it a point to help the whole person. He takes on every undergrad who approaches him because he understands that a lab can become a sort of family on campus.
A family builds each other up, and they strive for greatness. If we live like each person is our brother or sister, then perhaps the world would feel less intimidating and more people could be lifted up. Our lab has taken it upon ourselves to do this, and it has meant the world to me.
Why else would I talk about them nonstop?
I didn't know that such a close community was not the norm in some of the other labs.
My cohort also is filled with people who dedicated to a higher aim. We all study drastically different things, and yet we all are willing to sit and listen to stories of monkey poop and cancer alike.
I didn't know that such a supportive group was not the norm at most universities.
It appears that this sense of community, rooted in an unspoken tradition, is what makes Notre Dame so special. I know that not everyone is Catholic, but I believe that our faith is why ND has been able to maintain this strong tradition of community.
From the very beginning, a community based loosely on the Holy Family was intended for this somewhat odd spot in South Bend, IN. They have maintained it.
Mass is celebrated so often on this campus, I couldn't even keep count of it.
My undergrad once shared a conversation about the Mass with me. He talked about how it truly was about the community, not just the prayers and getting the Eucharist to fill some requirement. And as the campus changed and lost some of its Catholic identity to the outside world, it is still very clear that need for community, for bringing Heaven to Earth, is still a primary focus for Notre Dame.
It is that tradition which has made this community so great.
So why must we fight against tradition?
Why do people choose to lash out against people of faith or people with strong ties to their cultural heritage?Why do people actively sit and protest against the American flag? Why do people hate on large loving families who have nothing but love to give?
Perhaps we should all take a note from Notre Dame. Perhaps we should try to live as the Holy Family did: with an aim for a higher ideal and support in every which way.
If so many different people can come together for a football game, then why can't we all came together?
Heaven is meant for everyone who wishes with their whole heart to enter it.
And we should help everyone get there.
Thank you Notre Dame for an amazing start. I pray that I never lose sight of how blessed I am to be here.
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