a person who changed my life (m)

When I was a senior in high school, I did a stupid thing.  I went drinking at a friend's house before a school dance.

 My friend was a smart kid....all As...and somewhat shy.  She also had a wild streak to her.  I remember my shock when she told me she thought she might be pregnant (think 1972, Catholic school), and came to school bra-less one day (think white blouse).  I remember this boy Paul Fitz from our class turning beet-red when he saw her up at the chalkboard in calculus class, buttons straining on her blouse, flesh peaking through.

Cathy asked me to stop by her house before the school dance.  A few friends would be gathering there.  Her parents were never home.  Never.

I stop by and Cathy, our hostess, is serving sloe gin fizzes.  They looked like Hawaiian Punch.  I take one.  Must have been about 10 oz.  I am thirsty.  I chug it.

I feel no different.

Cathy offers me another.  She looks so professional behind the bar in her parents' basement.  I take the second drink.

Somewhere towards the end of that drink, I feel different.  Spacy.  Dizzy.  I put the rest of the drink down.

We go across the street to the high school.  It's getting worse.  I am unsteady on my feet.  The words are coming out of my mouth all distorted.  Is this what it is to be drunk?  Am I?  I've had wine at Sunday dinners with my Italian relatives.  This never happened before.  I am scared.

And then I get sick.  My friends take me to a stall in the girls bathroom.  I throw up.  Alot.

Fran Shanahan takes me home.  I remember looking up Broadway and just seeing lights.  Blurry, blurry lights.  It occurs to me that I could never drive in this condition.  I remember thinking that.

We get home and my mother is appalled. Shocked.  Angry. She's yelling at me.  I can't even process what she's saying. 

I go to the bedroom I share with my aunt who asks if I've been drinking.  I slur my words: No, I think I ha the flu or somethin'. The bed is spinning as if I'm on a carnival ride.  I vomit again.

At school the next week, the principal, Sister Ursula, meters out a severe punishment.  I am to be "expunged" from the record books of all my extra-curricular activities.  I can attend class.  I can even participate in after-school activities, but I can get no credit for them.  For the entire senior year.  She is making an example of me to the entire school.  No one will be cut a break if they break the rules.  No one.

A few months later, I get asked to interview at Radcliffe College (it was still separate from Harvard at that time.  It would fully merge one year later).

I ask some friends how I should explain the gap in my resume if asked during the interview.  My friends are all good kids.  They are of strong character and integrity. 

"LIE!" they say.  "Tell them you had to take care of someone at home who is sick.  You have to, M, there is no other way to explain how you dropped off the face of the earth during the most important period in school."

(Years later, this moment will remind me of the scene in The Sound of Music when the nuns pulled the cables in the getaway car to be driven by the Nazis who were hunting down the Von Trapps, thus enabling the Von Trapps to escape.  This is when good people do bad things for the right reason).

I take the Red Line to Harvard Square.  All along the way, I practice my lie.  Who is sick? What do they have? What role do I play in their care?  Over and over, I practice my lines.

I get to Radcliffe Yard and sign in at the Admissions Office.  My name is called.  I go in.

The Director of Admissions shares my name.  It helps break the ice.  We talk about all the different ways to spell our name.  She has an e on the end of hers.  I don't.  Silly chatter, but we're just warming up.

And then, she goes for it.  She asks THE question: "I notice that you were quite active in school for the first three years--student council, school plays, working in the admissions office, various clubs and now, well, nothing.  Why is that?"

Who is sick.  What do they have? What role do I play in their care?  I sit there, frozen.  The lines I practiced over and over are in my head but they won't pass my lips.  I stare at her.  She's waiting for me.  And then I blurt out:

I made a mistake.  A big one.  Tears well up in my eyes but, thankfully, they don't drop.

I tell her the whole story.  This woman has such a way about her that you feel you could tell her everything.  She is empathetic, intelligent, patient.  I remember the kind look on her face which was in stark contrast to Sister Ursula's farbissina punim.

We talk about forgiveness.  She asks if I thought the punishment fit the crime.  She asks how I motivated myself to finish my school year.  Why do I stay in the activities if I get no credit for it?  How would I have handled the situation if I were the principal?  I even go so far as to confess the elaborate lie I had planned to deliver less than 30 minutes before.  We talk about why I did not do that.

At the end of the interview, I thank her for her time and tell her I know there are better candidates than I for this school but that I really enjoyed meeting her and feel alot better.  "Maybe that is why I came here today.  To get another perspective.  If I don't get into Radcliffe, this would still be worth it to me."

I walk to Harvard Square to catch my train home.  I tell myself to look around one more time.  It was my first time there and, I'm convinced, my last.

In April, I get an acceptance letter which shocks me to my core. I sleep with it under my pillow, waiting for someone to notice the error and take it back.  But they don't. 

I go there and it changes my life.  I meet people from all over the world.  I learn from some of the best professors.  I meet Abby, one of my best friends and all-time favorite people.  I expand my horizons.  I stretch my thinking.  I am humbled by truly gifted and talented schoolmates--Yo Yo Ma and Bill Gates.  I learn to reconcile my two worlds--the blue-collar Italian American and the Harvard student.  It is a balance I try to strike for the rest of my life.

All because of this one woman who took a chance on me.  And yet, I never thanked her.  A few years after I entered Harvard, my friend Claudia takes a job in the admissions office working with M.  I tell Claudia my story and ask her to say hello to M for me.  Claudia does and says, "M says hi to you, too and wishes you well."  Claudia also says that M tells her "Boy those nuns really gave that kid a hard time."

I felt validated when I heard that.

So now, fast forward to 2012.  I am reading a book called The End of Your Life Book Club.  It's a story about an adult son and his dying mother.  They start a book club (just the two of them) when she gets diagnosed with cancer.  The book club is their way of bonding, sharing, coping,  and living while she is dying.

I bought the book not knowing the people.  I was reading it the other night when I realized the dying mother is my special angel. 

Her name was Mary Ann Schwalbe.  I will never forget her.