El Bandido

This week has been a roller coaster of emotions. Cliché phrase, I know, but that is what it has been.
There have been a lot of nerves. I had to make a quick overnight roadtrip to a conference over the weekend so my faculty advisor could introduce me to some of the people I'll be working with in London next month. I dislike meeting strangers in the professional setting and despite my best intentions I still feel like I'm terrible at the mixing and mingling required at conferences. So although it went well in the end, I was anxious, most of the time. I was also gearing up to defend my comprehensive exams, which wasn't helping with the nerves.
That leads to the next emotion. Elation. I passed my exams! My defense went remarkably well. My committee members all thought my essays were good and just asked me to expand on a few points. Although I felt about ten degrees too hot the whole time, I kept my compsure and we had a discussion about my essays and for the most part I felt competent, if not quite eloquent. The hour and fifteen minutes flew by, and the next thing I knew my advisor was saying "Well, I think we can wrap this up. Congratulations, you've officially advanced to candidacy!" So this is what it feels like to be ABD. The only thing left to do is write and defend the dissertation. No more arbitrary hurdles. For me, these exams were always the scariest part of the whole PHD process. I rarely doubt my ability to eventually write my dissertation, but I often doubted my ability to prove that I have the deep range of knowledge to be a professor in my field. But now I've proven I do have that knowledge. It's a great feeling. Plus I get a raise now that I'm a "candidate" and not a "student". It's not a huge raise, but it's still a nice perk of moving on to the next level.
I wish I could feel more excited than I do about all of this, but my excitement has been tempered by the horrible news I received a week ago today. My college roommate called me last week. We'd been playing phone tag for a month, so I assumed she was just calling to chat. When I picked up the phone, though, she said my name in a trembling voice and I knew something was wrong. I had an instant to think that maybe she'd had a fight with her husband or something had happened to one of her parents. Instead, she told me her son had died. Her two month old son. I have never literally been floored, but I was when she told me that. I had to sit down on the floor between my bed and the wall, and I think all I said for a long time was, "Oh my god. Oh my god." it has been a week since that phone call and I still haven't managed to come up with more adequate words. There's just no way for me to wrap my mind around something like this. Those of you who have known me for the almost decade I've known my former roommate know that I've helped her through some other serious life challenges. I thought with the birth of her son life was finally going her way. Instead, she experienced the death of her sweet baby boy. I keep trying to think of something that could be worse, and I can't. It was SIDS, so completely unexpected, which makes it even harder to fathom. I have to believe his death is part of a bigger picture, has a purpose none of us can see yet. Maybe we never will see it. But that's the only way to even remotely wrap your mind around a tragedy like this.
I haven't written about it yet because I didn't know how. Also, it feels wrong writing about it. It's not my story to tell.
And yet she's one of my closest friends, I love her, and I'm getting on a plane right now to spend the week with her providing what little comfort I can. So I have a role in this event, too, as much as I wish we all could wake up and find it never happened. I feel a tiny bit guilty. It's irrational, I know, but I can't help but wonder why some people are lightning rods to life's difficulties while others of us just get to roll blissfully along for years at a time. I'll have my own tragedies, we all do. But why do so many of hers have to happen so damn close together? And I'm angry. Not at God, exactly, just angry whenever I think about the fact that she won't get to watch her son grow up. And mostly I'm just sad. Terribly sad.
I hope I can help her as much as possible. Please say a prayer for her.