Sleep in Heavenly Peace

My research, my job which I love, causes the death of an animal every time I go in, and I don't care about that. I was in the store with my roommate while she smelled shampoos and ruled one brand out because of animal testing, and I informed her that it was either animal tests or someone's scalp falling off down the line. I have no heart when it comes to things like these.

I am graduating and going off to graduate school without looking back. I am moving to a new state and leaving everyone behind. This only bothers me a little.

Most days, I feel cold. Not me personally, but that others might view me as cold. Ruthless. Unyieldingly practical when it comes to my personal and professional life. This, also, only bothers me a little.

Today I don't feel cold. Today I feel like my efficiency is a mantra to get me through the days. Today, for the hundred thousandth time, I miss Doc Oc.

I was never anything to Doc other than one of his beloved students, but that was plenty. I remember talking to him when I had a crisis with physics and was thinking about switching to chemistry and he told me to get a B.S. in chemistry, I could "go anywhere for grad school, they'll kiss your feet!" I stopped by his office for help upon occasion, but I've always been too proud to regularly ask for assistance. I rarely missed his class, even though I'd already had almost everything he covered in high school and chemistry always came easily to me.

I remember his explanation for the phases of water: "I don't know why water forms two bonds when it's liquid and four bonds when it's solid. You die, you go up there, you ask him." Every time I turn on the distilled water tap (and swallow my guilt for washing dishes with distilled water when some people can't even find clean drinking water) I think about Doc demonstrating the wrong was to use distilled water in the beginning chem lab, splashing it all over himself as he sang and danced about.

I worked orientation this summer, and a lot of kids (aspiring pre-meds, usually) come in with questions and fears about chemistry. Every time I tried to answer or reassure them, all that would come out of my mouth was my own grief. Speaking to his friends among the faculty and students, hearing their sadness and frustration, made me want to do something more permanent, something to last.

After this class of 2007 graduates, with the help of a lot of people, there should be a permanent Doc Oc memorial on campus. If it can be done through sheer force of will, it will be done. I'm putting my clinical detachment to good use.

"One of the oddest justifications I have heard for religion is when people wish there is a God because some people are so evil there needs to be a hell. But tonight as I sit here I am wishing the opposite: I wish there was a heaven just so Doc could be there. Even if it ends up I'm wrong and I wake up in a land of brimstone it could never be truly horrible because I'd know Doc got to go to heaven."

~Yvette Cendes