Res. Life and the City #7- Support

There's the kind of support that you ask for and the kind of support you don't ask for. And then there's the kind that just shows up. ~Carrie Bradshaw


So I'm still in somewhat of a Debbie Downer mood. I know I was in a funk when I wrote my last entry and to be honest, I was waiting to be a better mood to write another post. However, seeing as that isn't happening, I guess I'll just write about what's been going on with me anyway. I have to remember to not guilt-trip myself about not having a happy and cheery blog since this is all about my first year as a professional, for better or for worse, right?

I've been having a really rough couple of weeks for a few reasons. The first is the whole spirituality thing that I wrote about last time. I feel a little better because I'm reading more, researching more, and having conversations with people who know what they are talking about so at least I'm not being stagnant. The other reason I've been having a rough go at it is because of some events that have taken place while I've been on duty. Our department does duty a week at a time so we are only on for two weeks the whole semester instead of random days and weekends throughout the entire year. I didn't know if I was going to like the structure, but I have been pleasantly surprised. When you aren't on duty, you really don't have to make crisis management a piece of your everyday life. I went three whole months with never holding the phone, so it was working out great for me!

However, this all changed a few weeks ago when I held the phone for the first time. I was surprised to be just as, if not more nervous the first night I was on duty than when I was on duty the first time when I was a grad. However, I kept telling myself that my duty experience at my current institution couldn't be as bad as the first time I was on duty when I was a grad since the first incident I dealt with ended with a student being LifeFlight-ed, another student being arrested, and the whole incident making international headlines, including CNN. (That's a story for another time).

Although there were some major incidences over the weekend, and one set a truly annoying roommates, I thought I was handling everything quite well. Then Tuesday morning happened. Around 10am I got a call from our Director (which was very atypical) who told me that an on-campus student had been killed in a car accident. What made the situation even more difficult was that the car was been driven by another on-campus student. My one and only fear working in Residence Life has been a student death. I feel like I can handle pretty much anything, but I was not prepared to handle this. My Director asked me to walk over to the student's room to see if the student's roommate was there and if the roommate was there, I was charged with telling him that his roommate and best friend had passed away.

As I began my walk over, I kept thinking to myself "How do I tell someone that their best friend is dead?" How do I do this? I've never been someone who can keep their emotions to themselves either, so I wasn't even sure I would be able to keep it together long enough to eek out the words without dissolving into a puddle of tears and mumbles. I finally arrived at the door, took a deep breath, and knocked. The door was opened by a red-faced student who invited me in and I soon realized that the news had already reached the majority of people in the student's community.

The six or so students invited me to sit down and I had the privilege to be with them while they processed the death of their best friend. I tried not to say too much, but just let the students go through the process of letting the situation sink it. They were all dealing with it in very different ways. A few women were balling their eyes out, one guy was playing video games and wouldn't say a word, the girlfriend of the student who died was running the show and calling everyone they have ever known, while another student suggested that we watch "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" because it was the deceased student's favorite movie.

I will be forever grateful for another student who took it upon himself to lighten the mood whenever possible. When all of us got very quiet and weren't talking, he went to his room, grabbed CatchPhrase and made all of us play for over an hour. When he realized that all of the women were crying and none of the men were, he commented with the thought "Damn societal expectations of masculinity that forces us to be tough and not show emotion." This of course, broke some major tension and also let the three men in the room release some tears in the process.

After a few hours of just being together, the students decided that they were going to get some lunch and then go to the chapel together. I gave them all my contact information and asked them to call me if they had any updates on the other students in the car who were injured, or if they just needed to talk to someone outside of their immediate world. I went back to work, processed the incident with my supervisor, and tried to get back to a productive frame of mind. Just as I was getting back to work, the duty phone rang and it was the roommate of the student who passed away. I asked if he was okay or if anything had changed. He said that everything was fine, but that he wanted to thank me. I, of course, was stunned so I asked why on Earth I needed to be thanked. He said "I just wanted to thank you for showing up. You didn't need to stay and you didn't need to allow us to be with each other without butting in, but you did and that's what we needed from the University, so thank you." It was at that moment, that I realized I really was in the right profession and what I was doing or saying, or even not saying, made a difference to these students in this difficult time in their collegiate careers.