I didn’t think that when Mrs. Hatchett gave me a copy of Dr. Seuss’ “Big Blue Book of Beginner Books” that it would become one of my most prized possessions. Nor did I think that, nearly twenty years later, as time faded the images and characters that I came to love, her cursive handwriting would stand to be as blue and bold as ever.
I also don’t think she expected that book to be the only thing I could remember her by. I couldn’t tell you how many times I met Mrs. Hatchett, or any conversation we had, but I feel her presence in the instances her grandson and granddaughter-in-law (my Uncle David and Tía Andrea) bring her up, or when I stare at the book’s place on my bookshelf where — scuffs and scratches aside — it remains in the same condition she gave it to me in.
This connection to people and places that may not be directly in front of me has proved to be one of the most essential components of my ability to acclimate to Notre Dame’s campus as a first-year student and my continued effort to make Notre Dame my home.
Even now as a senior, I imagine her words of encouragement to be hints at the life she didn’t know I would have — where I’d leave California summers and beaches for Midwestern fall and calm waters on Lake Michigan. And while I know I always would’ve encountered Dr. Seuss’ “Oh the Places You’ll Go!” something tells me she led me to it.
I read “Oh the Places You’ll Go!” for the first time since elementary school during my first year at Notre Dame, in my twin XL, after telling myself I needed “one more break and then I’ll get to studying” one too many times. Instead of receiving childhood nostalgia as anticipated, I received a challenge: how will I know if somewhere is meant for me? So, I went out exploring.
On this voyage I’ve found every pocket of campus and made room for myself to feel connected to the people I love, and to blend that with the love I’ve come to feel at Notre Dame. I hope you’re also able to foster this same love for Notre Dame, so that instead of drowning out the noise of campus on a game day, you embrace it the way it embraces you.
And in the moments when I know I need space to myself, I can feel at home when I close my eyes on St. Joseph’s Beach and hear the water coming into contact with the sand and, maybe for a second, the people in the distance sound like my hometown friends.
Or maybe I’ll sit by my window in the morning before my 8:20 a.m. classes. In those moments, I hear my grandma in the birds that sing outside my window, delivering messages from her orange home in California.
Sometimes, as Notre Dame families crowd onto campus each home game weekend, young siblings look like the two brothers I have in California, the ones who seemingly grow an extra foot in height every time I see them.
And, if I’m lucky, the sounds of people opening the doors to O’Shaughnessy’s Great Hall sound like my grandpa’s La-Z-Boy recliner, the one that’s sat empty for almost three years. And I’m taken back to his living room, the one with the fish he loved like his own children.
I’m grateful for the home I’ve made out of Notre Dame. The home I’ve earned. As I brace for the remainder of my final year, I’ve come to hope I hear from it in the future.
