In honor of graduations coming up across the land both in high school and college..it takes me back to 1996..the year I graduated from college..when I think of my graduation from college, I don’t remember the ceremony I remember a Nun, 1973 and me… three things that had a major impact on my life..or should I say my 👩🎓 graduation. I graduated with a speech degree and English minor with emphasis on public relations.. I could ‘talk the talk’…but I was never able to ‘do the math’. I have always hated math. With a passion. I somehow got through high school math.. a feat I think was impossible, I think the teacher 👨🏫 just finally signed off on a D to get me out.. we never saw eye to eye..in college the scene never improved.. I could do your basic math, subtract, add, divide and multiply all day long and wasn’t bad at it.. but higher education math escaped me..I could never understand why a person could give a shit what Y or X was. I told a professor once, “if my Dad told me to go count cows 🐮 in the pasture and I came back and said there is XY in the north part of the pasture and XZ In the southern, he would kick my ass and tell me to go back and bring him a real number”. I will say on my behalf, the professor was amused but it didn’t get me too far in the game of higher educational math. Another one liner I would tell my professors is, “I could write you a 13 page paper on how I can not do this shit”. That never worked either.. I had so many credits to graduate it was insane..but I had a handful of failed math classes hat kept me from it.. so here it is.. my advisor tells me I could graduate but I have to pass Algebra 2. I figured I was going to be in school forever.. I took it in the spring and failed..I signed up for summer school. My professor was an older guy who had probably seen a million kids like me come through. I started to take his class.. first test..failed.. second test failed.. third test failed and which found me in his office in 😭 tears. I told him of my journey of higher educational math and how I honestly could never get it.. he took a long deep breathe, studied me for a bit and said, “I seen this before..1973.. I had a student who was a nun that had the same issue”. My tears stopped.. a Nun I thought, 1973?? Holy shit, it was a sign from heaven above.. I looked at the professor and croaked, “I was born in 1973, what happened to her?”. “Well” he said, “she was like you, she couldn’t pass higher educational math. We finally had her tested and we found that she was mentally unable to do higher educational math”. My mouth fell open, “how did you test her?”. He went on, “well we had to put her through a lot of tests and in the end we found our results”. I smiled, “sign me up”. He scribbled down a room number and a phone number and told me to go check in at this office tomorrow. He said he would call ahead and set things up for me.. at last I thought maybe I had a chance to finally graduate. I went to bed happy with fingers crossed.. I went to the office the next day and met my new psychologist, a scruffy bearded dude in is mid 40’s with a pair of round wired glasses. We started a two week adventure of talking and looking at ink blots. He gave me a pamphlet to take home and fill out. He tells me, “you will probably have to call your parents and have them help you fill out the questions”. I smile, “not a problem”. I take home my 📚 homework and call mom and dad. Mom answers and I tell her the current state of my math class.. it was met with silence.. I continue on and tell her that I needed her to help me fill out a questionnaire.. I tell her, “I need to know how my birth was. Did they use anything to pull me out?? Was there any lack of oxygen? How big was I? Was I late?” And the questions continued on.. mom was like, “oh my gosh, you are kidding me. I don’t know half of this stuff”. I laugh, “well, let’s at least make it sound good”. When I got done talking to mom and finished my homework, I get to talk to dad. I tell him of my plan. He says, “oh geezus Christ, you have got to be shitting me?”. I tell him, “well unless you want to keep paying for math classes this is my only chance”. He was quiet and finally said, “you mean to tell me every time you flunk these math classes we have to pay for them?”. Needless to say, after that revelation he was completely on board with me and the Nun. The last day comes with my friend, the psych. I turned in my homework and prepare for my exit interview. He tells me, “one last thing, did you ever have a head trauma as a child?”. I thought and pondered and burst out laughing, “yeah I did actually”. He raised his eyebrows over his wire rimmed glasses.. I had peaked his interest. He said, “well, what happened?”. I started to tell him of my accident I had as a little kiddo.. “well I must have been about 4 or 5. I was with my Dad as I always wanted to go with him. He worked in the oil field. He was busy loading steel rods onto a trailer. I was supposed to stay in the pickup out of the way. I got bored, jumped out of the pickup and walked up behind Dad. I hollered, “Dad, can we go home?”. He turned around with the rod in his 🤚 hand..but when he turned around he just happened to accidentally smoke me in the middle of the forehead with this rod”. The psychologist is writing this story down like crazy, he says, “what happened to you? Did you pass out”. I am still laughing as I tell the story as honestly this was always a good funny family story. “Well it knocked me out. Dad scooped me up and took me to the house”. He asked, “did you go to the hospital?”. I looked at him oddly and said, “well no, cause I woke up.. but look at my forehead..I have a dent in my forehead from it”. He asked me again “you really didn’t go to the hospital?”. I said, “well no..you don’t understand, we live a long way from the hospital and I woke up, so I was fine”. I sat in the chair rubbing my dent in my forehead. He finished writing and said “well I will review everything and you should know what we find in a few weeks”. I asked him how the outcome was looking. He said, “well, I have to review everything, but sometimes when people have accidents some of the wires separate and can’t connect, it is hard to say if this is what happened to you, but you should know soon”. So I celebrated that my stint with the psych was over and prayed that God could somehow link me and his Nun together. A few weeks later I was checking the mail and there was a letter in there from the President of th University. I shook a little wondering what awaited me.. I ripped it open and in the letter it said that due to a traumatic child hood accident where a head injury occurred, I had been deemed unable to complete higher educational math. He passed me for any math classes I would have to have to graduate. I ran literally to my professors office with tears running.. we did it we did it I screamed.. we sat and talked about it and we parted ways. I went home and called mom and dad.. I was reading Dad my letter. When I got done he said, “what accident were you in?”. I told him, “well I told him the story of when you hit me in the head with that rod”. He said “oh great, I will probably have some family services at the door tomorrow for child abuse. Nice”. I laughed and said “hey, it got ME out of taking anymore math classes and it got YOU out of paying for anymore classes”. He agreed that it was probably worth it..I told Dad I was going to frame my degree and this letter. so there it is, my heavenly ties.. me, a Nun and 1973..lol..my guardian angel had to work over time to get that one thrown together.
