Walking back to school from the train station on Easter Sunday, I watched neatly dressed families pile into church for Easter services. Daughters in spring dresses, sons in oversized hand-me-down blazers, mothers and fathers and uncles and aunts and grandparents and all together on Easter morning. I was suddenly stricken with homesickness. On Easter morning I left home without to saying goodbye to my twin brother or my little sister, to get on a train out of Stamford at 7:45 AM. While families were just waking up and making breakfast, I was sitting alone in South Station. At about the time some would be putting on their best clothes to head off to church or to a relative’s for Easter lunch, I was getting on a train from North Station. I had neither a day to travel, nor any less work than on a normal weekend. I found myself back on campus, missing my family on a day that should have been reserved for them. There are some things we must give up to come to Andover, but family should not be one of them. They say it is coldest on the top of the mountain, that leaders must sacrifice much for the sake of those they will lead. But though ours is a noble calling, nothing is worth sacrificing family. The family bond is eternal, and, in the end, all we have. Andover is a beautiful, wonderful institution, but she can never be our sister, our brother, our mother or our father. Our families bring us into the world, and they are there when we leave it; Andover can do neither. Some argue that we cannot take Easter off without recognizing all the other holidays celebrated by our heterogeneous society. Of course, this would be impractical. However, we should recognize the most popular holidays. Though many Andover students aren’t religious at all, most have a Christian background. For them, religious or not, Easter is a family time. We can’t always accommodate all religions, but that doesn’t mean that we should ignore them all. I do not know why we didn’t have a day off for Easter, and I am sure there is a good reason. Maybe it’s because prospective students visited the school on Monday, or because we have a day off for college visiting this weekend. No matter the rationale, there is no reason good enough to keep us from our families.
