A year and a half ago, I retired from an employer that has been a big part of my life for most of my life. With family and friends, Candace and I celebrated my retirement (thanks Zoom) from Wake Forest University as a new academic year was starting without me for the first time in 30 years.
The pandemic had already started, so I had been working from home for months at that time. Due to the pandemic, l stayed off campus and out of the way in the months that followed my retirement. My Wake Forest colleagues were doing an outstanding job without me, but I admit that some days I wished I could help them navigate the pandemic.
Since my retirement from Wake Forest, I have not been on campus, often. When I have been there, it has usually been on a weekend or holiday. Essentially, it has been when campus was somewhat quiet, mostly.
I have met with Wake Forest friends on several occasions, but routinely off campus at a restaurant or brewery or elsewhere. Recently, I met a great friend on campus for lunch at a dining area well familiar to me. My former colleague and I met first at the building where I worked for a long time, then we walked to another nearby building for lunch. Afterward, I walked alone around campus a while. It was a busy day on campus, with classes underway and staff and faculty busy in offices and other spaces everywhere.
Here’s what I found. I felt like a retiree. And an alumnus. And a parent. I did not feel like a staff member. And that was okay.
I walked past places where people I had known were no longer working. Some had retired, as I have. Some had moved on to other jobs. Students I had known were nowhere to be found. They are alumni now and I am proud of them.
I tell people that I know every square inch of that gorgeous campus. I have walked through every building. I have run and walked all over campus thousands of times. That goes all the way back to when I was a full-time graduate student starting in the late 1970s.
When I walk on campus, I see ghosts, in a way. I am walking with graduate school professors who taught me as much out of class as in class. Their precious words remain as precious memories, especially now that they have passed on. I thank God for every one of them.
Professors, staff and students I came to know during my Wake Forest career remain with me, too. I can look up to a window in a building and remember the early morning meetings where my colleagues and I gathered to address a critical situation affecting our university community. I remember walking along sidewalks with students who wanted to talk with me about something that was of concern to them. Today, some of those young folks are middle-aged parents with children in college.
Among my happiest times at Wake Forest was when my son and daughter were students there. I would walk across Hearn Plaza and look up to the windows of the rooms where they lived. I could hardly believe that I, a man who had grown up in some hard circumstances at times, had children studying at one of our nation’s finest universities. Today, my daughter is an adjunct faculty member.
I gained many fine friends through the years at Wake Forest. One, a world-renowned professor, passed away in December. We had planned to keep meeting on campus for lunch for years to come. Despite the pandemic, we occasionally met off campus for lunch and catching up, in addition to our regular texts, phone calls and emails. I am not ready, yet, to go near his former office or our favorite on-campus lunch spot. I have wonderful memories of our friendship that I call on, frequently.
I have wandered around in explaining all of this, as I wandered about campus, recently. The short story is I am okay as Graduate School alumnus, university retiree and Wake Forest parent. I am more than okay.
I feel at peace. Others are taking care of Wake Forest these days. Now, I feel like I did a long time ago when I had finished my master’s in English and was working a newspaper job I loved. I had moved on back then. And I have moved on now at another stage in my life.
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