Education bloomed under ‘sweet’ setting

About a week ago, I was sitting on the hallway floor in front of locker 143 signing a friend’s yearbook and trying hard to make sure the tears that were pooling in my eyes never had the chance to make it down my cheek. I was also running to a teacher for the last pieces of wisdom before a final or just listening to sounds of voices and laughs that would soon move on to their summer adventures. I was soaking in the last week of my senior year, my last week as Lawrence Woodmere Academy student.

I was so used to the routine of seeing people come and go from the school that I’ve known as home for the last 14 years, so why did I want so badly to be the exception? I was nervous and anxious and excited. I felt I had so much left to do and say. Neither my heart nor my mind could grasp the reality that this end that I so highly anticipated since September was finally here.

I had expected some grand epiphany to happen once I finished my last high school class at the end of May, and for the heavens to shine a little brighter during finals week, but none of this weird fantasy of “the end” seemed to come true. It was more of this overwhelming sense of anxiety mixed with excitement following me through motions that previously were so basic, making them sentimental.

My parents and I decided when I was younger that on my last day of school, I would hand out a rose and a card to every teacher I’ve ever had that was still at LWA. As I roamed the three floors for the last time, three dozen roses in hand, I couldn’t help but feel like I was watching my whole school experience finally come together. Seeing projects I remember doing in middle school made by a current seventh-grader or hearing the cheers from a Lower School Field Day activity in which I once participated. I knew that a few words on a card and a rose couldn’t amount to half of the gratitude I have for everyone this school, but it was worth a shot. Seeing the faces of teachers who have helped and literally watched me grow, light up in surprise when I handed them my small gift is undeniably one of the sweetest pleasures in life.

No one really understood how much this school means to me: It was home when I needed it to be and an escape when I needed that too. It was where I learned to be confident, where I learned to be kind. It is where I learned to value my education and utilize my opportunities.

Roses, cards, yearbook signatures, senior dinner speeches, will never seem to be enough to accurately portray my gratitude. My diploma isn’t just a sign of academic accomplishment; it is a sign of successfully becoming a product of a community that values tradition, excellence, and integrity.

It is with pride that I will step into Fordham University this September and say I came from Lawrence Woodmere Academy. As one of my favorite bands, Coldplay, put it, “Nobody said it was easy, nobody said it would be this hard,” but these 14 years could not have been sweeter.

It has been a pleasure and a privilege writing this column alongside Nicole Engelman, and I could not have been more thankful for this opportunity.

Stay humble and stay curious.