You're a Blessing

This day last year I was going to some of my last classes for Careers in Professional Theatre and Comparative Politics. I was trying to figure out how I was going to have time to finish my zine for Queer Culture and rehearse for my senior Guerrilla act. I was planning on accepting a position in the Memphis Teaching Fellowship starting a the end of May, but I had a job interview the day before at the Red Cross which was making the decision a little more difficult. I just didn't know if I wanted to stay in Tuscaloosa for another year.

Well, we can see how much all of that mattered now. Within a matter of hours, all of those things got pushed from my mind, and I was suddenly a college graduate a week and a half early and had to go home without the good-byes I longed for. It's a terrible was to end your senior year, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. Since then, though, I have seen how much stronger it made us. I already knew that Alpha Psi Omega was part of my college family. We talk about it all the time, but I don't think it has ever been better exemplified than it was that day. Everyone flocked to Rowand Johnson even after the storm had come and gone because we just knew everyone would be there. I knew the majority of my friends were okay because they were with me.

Many of you know my grandmother's and aunt's homes were hit and received major damage in Phil Campbell, Alabama. I went up there a couple of times to help them get things out of their wrecked homes, and on that Saturday after the tornado was when I received the call that changed my life. There was barely any cell phone service up there, but I was some how able to receive one call while I was in my grandmother's dining room alone. It was from my would be supervisor offering me a job in Disaster Services at the American Red Cross of West Alabama. I knew it was what I needed to do and readily accepted. Then I stood there and cried out of pure happiness.

I don't regret the decision to say in Tuscaloosa for the extra year. Working at the Red Cross has meant the world to me. I have been able to give back to a community that has given me so much, and I was also able to help even more people than I ever anticipated. For the rest of my life I will refer to the area of West Alabama as my counties. I've remembered why I love being from the South by meeting all of these people in rural towns who are genuinely happy just for me to come and talk to them. It hasn't all been easy, but I know that I can leave Tuscaloosa at the end of June and feel good about it. I'm leaving after a year of understanding the counties more than I ever thought I would. I'm not leaving with a heart filled with regret as I did last May. I felt so helpless last year not knowing how to help, but now I will always be able to respond to natural disasters even if the don't affect me directly. There's my plug for free Red Cross training. I was able to respond to the January tornadoes in Center Point and no what I wasn't able to do for Tuscaloosa. The feeling cannot be described nor compared to anything else.

I'm going to give a special mention to my fellow APO seniors and my friend Sarah. I thought that our class of seniors was pretty close, but I think that we have been forced into having an even stronger relationship because of last year. We all went home shellshocked and had no one that completely understood what we were going through. I could cry at moment's notice in those first few weeks, not that I didn't already have a reputation for getting emotional. Thanks to social media I got to see that we were all going through the same thing. The one thing that gave me closure on college and the way it ended was my senior Guerrilla in December. A few people got to come back and do there performances as well. It was so cathartic, an dI am so grateful we were given that opportunity. I know that I can always talk to these people even if we haven't spoken in months, and it'll be like we saw each other yesterday, I am so proud of all of them.

Now my friend Sarah. We had become closer and closer over the last two years of school. My senior year we hung out at the Wesley Foundation EVERYDAY watching terrible yet wonderful television and making leftover cookies from the goody bags. I was lucky enough to be able to have Sarah with me that day. We left the Wesley Foundation since it was one floor and in the projected storm path to go to Rowand Johnson and spent the night in Wesley Foundation with no electricity watching Harry Potter on my iTunes until the computer died. I don't think I could have slept the little I did that night if I hadn't gotten to be there with one of my best friends.

I took a Red Cross car the other day to get some breakfast because I am notoriously always eating at the office. When I drove up to pay, the woman saw the Red Cross sticker in the back window. She asked me if I worked there, and I told her I did. Then she said, "You're a blessing." It's odd that something so simple could have such a large impact, but it did. So I want you all to know, you're a blessing to me and many others. Nothing can change that. Especially not a tornado. Tuscaloosa, I love you, and it makes me so proud to call you my hometown. Roll Tide.