By Andrea Scarpino
Los Angeles
This week, Zac defended his dissertation in Ohio, which means he can now officially call himself a Doctor of Philosophy. The afternoon before he defended, I went with his parents to euthanize their dying cat. And the day after he defended, his mother retired after 19 years at Ohio State.
Zac’s been working toward his Ph.D. for as long as I’ve known him, first getting his Master’s Degree, taking coursework, passing gate-keeping exams, spending the last three years hunkered down with writing and revision. Tuesday, after a two-hour defense, his committee chair shook his hand, congratulated him, signed paperwork, and that was that. No words of praise, no fireworks. Other people on campus went about their lives.
We had dinner with his committee, of course, and lots of drinks, but for a moment as big as passing the last big hurdle on the way to his career, the marking seemed a little insufficient. And so, too, his parents’ cat’s death. Last weekend, her kidneys started to fail and she yowled whenever she was left alone for even a minute or two. But it was an easy, nondescript death. She lay on a warm blanket and the vet gave her one clear shot. Then her body let go. Other people in the vet’s waiting room took no notice of us.
And Karen’s retirement, too. She’s worked most of her life in some capacity, and now, she’s done. She doesn’t have to work again unless she wants to. Her office had a party with a cake and balloons, then we went out to dinner to eat. But how do you really celebrate such a significant thing?
It seems to me that big moments of passing, of celebration, are so important to us that no honoring really seems worthy, no celebration really captures all the work and life that has led to that point. Indeed, maybe if it were possible to capture a sufficient marking, that would indicate the moment wasn’t important enough. When my father died, I remember thinking the news should have taken notice, his funeral should have been packed with thousands of people, something huge and important should have marked his death. But even if the Earth had stopped rotating, I’m not sure that would have felt big or important enough for the loss I felt. This week’s colliding of two milestones and a death seemed apt, somehow, even so. Each event carried a loss of some sort, a change, a moving on to other things. I’m not sure we marked them well enough, sufficiently enough to do them justice, but I’m also not sure we could have, what we would have done differently. I am sure, though, that it was one helluva week.
Andrea Scarpino is the west coast Bureau Chief of POTB. You can visit her at:
Planet of the Blind 
What a week indeed! I had no idea anything besides the successful dissertation defense happened. That alone is cause for the earth to stop rotating in my world, even just for a millisecond. It hardly seems possible for everyone not to notice things that rock our worlds. Well said.
LikeLike