Closing Remarks, Epilogue

In view of COVID-19 restrictions, Moody holds five separate graduation ceremonies. Mine happens on the Thursday of that week and truly, it’s one of the more joyful experiences of my life. The next day, when I walk through the plaza on my way to Joe’s to work, I can’t help but smile for everyone in their caps and gowns. The grads linger all over campus and I am stopped a few times for pictures and congratulations.

“Jessi!” I hear my name from behind me and whirl around to find Kristopher, who I haven’t seen much since freshman year. He towers above me, blond and regal in his urban cohort stole.

“Kris!” I hug him, grinning. “Congratulations!”

“Thank you!” He’s smiling, too. “Congrats to you, too!”

We spend a few moments chatting. He technically graduated in December, but came back for the festivities, and I’m glad I caught him one last time. He tells me that the next couple of years will be spent on rest and recovery before he hopes to head to the mission field.

We stand there, sober in our acknowledgement that one needs recovery after being in this place.

Moody Bible Institute is a good place and a broken place. It gives richly and takes a lot. The pace of life and the pressure to succeed in deep, soul-spending ways easily push students to burn out by the end of their undergraduate careers, especially if you do anything extra like residence life or urban cohort.

“I can tell you that five months out, it does get better,” he says, and I can see the refreshment in his face.

It’s the first time someone gives me full permission to need to leave.

...

I say my last goodbyes and slip out of Moody too easily. This place that has shaped me permanently and been the setting for so many of my greatest memories—I take one last look around, lock my door, and leave.

I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, for despair to fall on me, but it doesn’t come. There are moments of missing, of feeling the loss, but overall, my emotional state can be more closely describe as...relief.

Kristopher’s words come back to me and I realize just how weary I have been—for at least the last two years. Since the first moments of meeting my floor, the responsibility of caring for them has weighed on me heavily. I have carried them in my heart in every moment, whether I knew it or not.

As I drive away from Moody, I start to let the responsibility go. Not the affection. Not the desire to stay in touch. Just the weight.

And I breathe a little easier.

...

Despite the relief, I worry a bit about the loneliness my new life will hold. I know it will come. For a couple of weeks, texts and Marco Polos come through multiple times a day. Slowly, though, they taper off as people start work, start new lives.

In the absence of communication, I am able to face the fear and prepare for it.

Loneliness isn’t always bad. I am still breathing, deeply even. I am answering Megan’s question: There is life after graduation. One breath at a time.

...

May 23rd, 2021—8 days after graduation

And it’s not all lonely.

One week, almost to the hour, after I leave my dorm room for the last time, I arrive in a tiny subdivision of Kenosha, Wisconsin, and I say hello.

Anna spreads her arms wide and says hello back.

The day before, she texted me that she had just realized that the house where she was staying this week was an hour away from mine, much more attainable than the eight hour drive it would normally be—but alas, she was leaving tomorrow.

“What time tomorrow?” I responded, my wheels turning. Normally, I wouldn’t drive to Kenosha—I hate driving and try to avoid it as much as I can—but graduation (and the subsequent boredom that afterward ensued) has made me more up for adventure than usual.

Late afternoon, she responds.

I invite myself over.

A week ago, I looked into her eyes and wondered if I ever would again. Today, I drive an hour away and embrace her.

There is life after graduation, life after goodbyes—and even life together.

That is always the question when the season ends: What happens to life together? And yet, here I am. Who knows how long our connections will hold, but we have today.

Ultimately, too, we have forever.

People went a little crazy thinking about eternity the last few weeks of school. Either you clung to the thought or ran from it. Whenever I told someone I’d “see them in heaven, if not before,” they recoiled and asked why I was being so dramatic.

I didn’t mean to be dramatic. I meant to be truthful. And maybe it was a tad over the top, but it was sincere. I couldn’t wait to look at each of them in the fullness of their heavenly glory and say hello forever.

No more tears.

No more goodbyes.

No more separation.

My human heart that longs for—was designed specifically for—connection, will finally be satisfied in perfect communion. And so will each of my friends’.

In the present, I hold onto this, and to the fact that I have a Father who loves to surprise me with unexpected hellos.

I leave Anna’s a little less afraid of the darkness that comes with being alone, a little more hopeful that I might see the others again before their eyes are too bright to look into. There is life after graduation—and, like my life at Moody, it is filled to bursting with people I love. And there are more to come, as I step into the next chapter.

Soon I will be just as grateful for those faces as the ones I’m leaving behind.