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Authors: Wendy Dubow Polins
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and what you can add to the world. Each of you will conduct your own experiments and research. You should know that this is what links all of you to the past and future."
I want to answer the challenge. No longer am I merely a visitor at Columbia University walking along the uneven brick path and through the tall black iron gates, guarded regally by the frozen stone figures. As a small child I had passed by their timeless forms, courageously looking up at their beautiful, silent granite faces, seeking their distant gaze while holding the hand of my grandfather.
I look around at the great steps and plaza in the center of the campus, the trees and the historic stone buildings that line the walkway. I can feel the energy. But it is not simply from the rushing groups of people, laughing and talking animatedly. There are posters everywhere on campus of my grandfather's face, announcing his upcoming lecture at the university and the list of international awards he has recently received. His eyes always on me.
"There he is!" Emily has dragged me into the bookstore and screams as she runs over to a large table set up with a life-size cardboard figure of my grandfather.
"Look, Gabriella, doesn't he look cute?"
I run around to the other side of the nearest bookcase and try to get away from all the eyes that have turned in our direction.
"This man." Emily points to the center of his cardboard chest, talking to no one in particular.
"He
is going to show everybody. That he is right." She leans toward his flat corrugated face and puckers her lips in a kiss.
"Gabriella, where did you go? Gabriella?"
I crouch behind the books, wishing I could disappear. "Come on, Emily, please stop, honestly," I whisper loudly from behind the stacks. "Let's get out of here."
"Get used to it, sweetie. Your grandfather is about to change the way we see our world."
I hoped she was right. He had spent his entire life devoted to proving what many believed was impossible. Safe, I thought, in the confines of the academic world. Now, I had so much more to worry about. Before, I could find him in his office or study, in a controlled, protected environment. But now, he was
everywhere:
on every newsstand, bookstore, radio show, and television network, traveling around the globe. There was no more denying it. He had become an international celebrity, and the world was waiting for him to reveal the results of his life's work. I worried about the exposure, the press, and what we had discussed in his library, the threats to his safety. He had made light of it, but I knew he was determined to move forward and show the skeptics that he had not spent the last twenty years of his life moving toward the extreme fringes of the scientific community. That instead, he had found the very heart of it. His
proof.
Answering the questions that had been asked since the beginning of time.
I was glad to have Emily with me. Her plans, however, were quite different than mine.
"I'm in business school, Gabriella, remember? You're the dreamer, and I'm—well—the practical one." She winks and begins to list the many differences between her upcoming experience and mine.
The powerful history we shared was a bond that could never be broken, and Emily represented a tangible link to many critical events in the past. Including Lily and my family.
"Incredible how we're finally at the same school. We always hoped this would happen."
"When we only had the summers."
"Our summers together in Gloucester will always be a real and significant part of our lives." Emily throws her arms around my shoulders as she did whenever we talked about those days.
"I know." I could feel the emotion building in me. "I just wish Lily could be here with us. She should be here too."
"Gabriella, you saved her. You
saved
her life." She knew that I would not allow discussion of that terrible day when the car almost claimed Lily.
"I made a mistake; I waited too long. Emily, I—"
"We're not going to talk about
I want to answer the challenge. No longer am I merely a visitor at Columbia University walking along the uneven brick path and through the tall black iron gates, guarded regally by the frozen stone figures. As a small child I had passed by their timeless forms, courageously looking up at their beautiful, silent granite faces, seeking their distant gaze while holding the hand of my grandfather.
I look around at the great steps and plaza in the center of the campus, the trees and the historic stone buildings that line the walkway. I can feel the energy. But it is not simply from the rushing groups of people, laughing and talking animatedly. There are posters everywhere on campus of my grandfather's face, announcing his upcoming lecture at the university and the list of international awards he has recently received. His eyes always on me.
"There he is!" Emily has dragged me into the bookstore and screams as she runs over to a large table set up with a life-size cardboard figure of my grandfather.
"Look, Gabriella, doesn't he look cute?"
I run around to the other side of the nearest bookcase and try to get away from all the eyes that have turned in our direction.
"This man." Emily points to the center of his cardboard chest, talking to no one in particular.
"He
is going to show everybody. That he is right." She leans toward his flat corrugated face and puckers her lips in a kiss.
"Gabriella, where did you go? Gabriella?"
I crouch behind the books, wishing I could disappear. "Come on, Emily, please stop, honestly," I whisper loudly from behind the stacks. "Let's get out of here."
"Get used to it, sweetie. Your grandfather is about to change the way we see our world."
I hoped she was right. He had spent his entire life devoted to proving what many believed was impossible. Safe, I thought, in the confines of the academic world. Now, I had so much more to worry about. Before, I could find him in his office or study, in a controlled, protected environment. But now, he was
everywhere:
on every newsstand, bookstore, radio show, and television network, traveling around the globe. There was no more denying it. He had become an international celebrity, and the world was waiting for him to reveal the results of his life's work. I worried about the exposure, the press, and what we had discussed in his library, the threats to his safety. He had made light of it, but I knew he was determined to move forward and show the skeptics that he had not spent the last twenty years of his life moving toward the extreme fringes of the scientific community. That instead, he had found the very heart of it. His
proof.
Answering the questions that had been asked since the beginning of time.
I was glad to have Emily with me. Her plans, however, were quite different than mine.
"I'm in business school, Gabriella, remember? You're the dreamer, and I'm—well—the practical one." She winks and begins to list the many differences between her upcoming experience and mine.
The powerful history we shared was a bond that could never be broken, and Emily represented a tangible link to many critical events in the past. Including Lily and my family.
"Incredible how we're finally at the same school. We always hoped this would happen."
"When we only had the summers."
"Our summers together in Gloucester will always be a real and significant part of our lives." Emily throws her arms around my shoulders as she did whenever we talked about those days.
"I know." I could feel the emotion building in me. "I just wish Lily could be here with us. She should be here too."
"Gabriella, you saved her. You
saved
her life." She knew that I would not allow discussion of that terrible day when the car almost claimed Lily.
"I made a mistake; I waited too long. Emily, I—"
"We're not going to talk about
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