A Dark and Stormy Post

Last Wednesday, I was sick and exhausted. Last Wednesday, I was ready to enjoy a relaxing evening. Last Wednesday, I only had the respite of a long weekend on my mind. And then I checked my Facebook.

Last Wednesday, I discovered that I had lost a professor, mentor, and friend.

I should have met Professor William Vande Kopple my freshman year at Calvin, nearly four years ago. I had decided to study abroad in York and began the application process to make that happen. That process required the signature of the English department chair.

I hadn't declared my major at that point; in fact, I hadn't even completed a full English class at Calvin. So I had no idea who the chair of the English department was. Or that there were, in fact, two of them. To figure out who they were and what they looked like, I turned to Calvin's friendly neighborhood StalkerVision for their photos and office numbers.

Vande Kopple looked rather stern in his photo, I remember. I went to Professor Vander Lei instead.

Two years, later, I was excited to take the Grammar interim. Taught by the always academic and constantly comedic duo Vande Kopple and VandenBosch, Grammar exhausted my brain with patterns and my diaphragm with laughing. Vande Kopple was no longer a stern face in a poorly lit picture--he was a friend. A Facebook friend to boot.

Later that semester, I went on my first writer's retreat. I'm not sure if I've ever admitted it, but I was intimidated by other students with far more confidence and writing classes than I. But, despite being secretly terrified to share any of my work, I fell sway to Vande Kopple's enthusiasm and submitted a sentence to the Bulwer-Lytton competition. And I won.

For those of who who don't wish to sort through my posts to find it, it goes a little like this:  

The relationship ended, she realized, the day he had shaved his beard--oh that magnificent beard, which preceded him with proud protuberance, putting the bushy tails of sleek squirrels to such a shame that they brought offerings of winter-aged nuts while weeping over their inadequacy--and every time she looked upon the balded chin bereft of the masculine, yet tender, homage to Sampson's strength, she was overcome with a poignant pain that overshadowed her once all-consuming love.

Vande Kopple was so proud of that sentence, bringing it up weeks, months, even years later. And he made me feel proud of it too--as delightfully stupid as it was. He made me feel intelligent, funny, and worthwhile in front of my peers. I felt like I belonged. I felt like an English major of Calvin College. It was a gift without price.

Another year passed. I experienced my first relationship, tumbling head over heels down a path I didn't know. And just as suddenly as it began, it was over. It was over with a shock and a cliche and a back walking away from me.

It was two days before Christmas break began, and three weeks before I was set to go on a trip to Massachusetts with the New England Saints. And with the man who had just broken my heart.

When I got on the bus to New England, I was glad to have a row to myself. I didn't want anyone to see me. I wanted everyone to blame my red eyes on exhaustion, my sniffles on a cold, my silence on shyness. My heartbreak, exacerbating an as-yet undiagnosed anxiety disorder, had left me in a pit. I firmly believed that I was worthless. Unloved. And worse--unlovable. And now I was stuck on a bus with people I didn't know; people I couldn't trust to love me, not yet. I was stuck on a bus with a person who'd seen all of me and decided that it wasn't worthwhile.

What had I done?

I cried off and on the entire bus ride, adding hopelessness to my list of "-less" and "un-" descriptors.

After the enforced closeness of Plimoth, my mask was beginning to crumble. So when the group gathered for Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, I lagged behind. I stared at the moon--it was beautiful, yes, but it also gave me an excuse to set myself apart. In the dark, no one could see that I wasn't smiling.

But William Vande Kopple did. As my Facebook friend, he'd seen the status change, but hadn't heard the full story. He coaxed it all out of me, from the walk after class to the excruciating variation of "It's not you, it's me."

"He didn't give you closure?" I remember he was shocked and angry on my behalf, startling against his usual good humor.

It was a simple observation, but it had a profound impact on the broken girl walking next to him. He cared enough to listen to my little story. And, not only that, he stood up for the validity of my wounded emotions. He believed that I, even I of the "un-" and "-less," deserved something. He believed that I deserved respect, even when I could not.

At that moment, underneath the eerie moon in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, I got the first inkling that I was going to be okay. Because he was there for me.

To some, it may sound silly. Heartbreak, after all, is a part of life. But for the anxious girl stuck at the bottom of a pit, William Vande Kopple's listening ear was a rope. And it displayed, I think, the singular gift that made him such a beloved and effective teacher.

You see, Professor Vande Kopple watched when we thought no one was. He saw the smiles on our faces fall when others had their backs turned. He saw our grimaces of pain when we fell behind. He heard the sighs leave our lips when everyone's ears were tuned elsewhere.

I will miss the man who made me proud of myself, who made me laugh until my sides hurt, and who calmed insecurities and anxieties I hadn't yet named. Most of all, I will both wistfully and fiercely miss the man who watched me, who watched my friends and fellow students, and who now watches over us all.