"I Want You to Read This Essay Between Now and When You Die"

Dear Sunset Watchers and Final Moment Gawkers,


Today was a day of lasts. 


It's the final day of the semester, evoking some contradicting emotions. This morning our entire Senior Drama class arrived fifteen minutes early, knowing full well our director would be late. We may have pretended to expect the Black Box door to swing open at any moment, but all any of us really wanted was to was to be together for one last time. Slouched against the entrance to the drama room chatting about things that didnt' really matter, leaning against one another and smiling despite being completely exhausted, holding hands as couples, but also just as friends. We were the image of familiarity. 


The past couple months have knotted our heart strings together by a single thread, a profound love of drama. Had it not been for drama I wouldn't have known some of my best friends. We would probably have seen each other in the halls but never cared, never took the time to become friends. I can honestly say that I love my cast unconditionally and would drop everything to help any one of them who needed it. I also know that they would do the same for me. We have been together through thick and thin. The day of the plane crash in Old Towne, the nights we got standing ovations. 


But today was our final class as a cast, and not without some tears. Our Director revealed to us that he enjoyed our cast the most in his last ten years of teaching, which is saying a lot considering he taught Dustin Milligan. Sharpies in hand we signed each other's cast t-shirts and joked that if anyone got famous we'd all get rich. However, I can't imagine ever selling mine because of the sentiment attached to it. Family relics come to mind, and I'm sure my grand children will laughingly appreciate "That Strange T-Shirt of Gramma's".

The other last today included the last cupcakes raffled off in French and an interesting last text in English. Our teacher left us with an essay by Mordecai Richler titled "1944: The Year I Learned to Love a German". The author is Jewish firstly, and in context 1944 would be a year many Jewish children learned to hate Germans for what they had done to their people. Our teacher explained that he had given it to us because he wanted us to understand the impact of literature, finishing his lecture with "I want you to read this essay between now and when you die". The impact of the statement startled me not only because of the directness in which he had said it, but also the implications. He wanted us to read the essay because it would make us better people, because reading is important. 

There are a lot of reasons to do things that are not required. From spending a couple extra minutes outside a drama room door, to reading an essay about a Jewish man falling in love with a book of German Origins, we may do things because in some way we feel the need to finish them. Drama is over, but I don't think any of us would have accepted it without our non-verbal good byes this morning. 


And well, I probably could not live the rest of my life with an unread essay on my desk.


May you finish what you start, no matter how hard it is.


Arctic Hipster