Okay, so I know that graduation has absolutely nothing to do with death, but I wouldn't have embarked on this journey had it not been for Goucher college and the pursuit of my MFA.  See that cute little lady up there?  It was a random phone call to her house that started it all.  I called her house and a funeral home answered.  That got us talking.  Who works at funeral homes?  And why?

From there, the project morphed into a personal journey of why I feared death.  I wanted to solve this mystery by being around people who worked with it and or faced it.

Tom worked with me during my most difficult semester.  I'm sure he wanted to pummel me over the phone on numerous occasions due to my constant hand wringing and apprehension over the simplest of tasks.  I was kind of a weenie.  But in the end, it all worked out.  Jacob Levenson, who was my last mentor wasn't able to attend graduation, but he was integral in making sense of all the research I collected.

It was a happy and sad day.  It was the culmination of two years of an emotional roller coaster ride.  In school, I loved that I was given permission to write.  I had to do it.  I was held accountable.  Now, I have to embark on the book proposal--solo.  There will be no hand holding, no early morning phone calls, and no one to say, "Pam, don't forget to hold the baby."

I'll miss that.