Persistent Pursuit of Perfection Part 2: The Promise
I remember being the best student in my class when I was a middle school student at Saint Columbkille’s private catholic school in Brighton, MA. I was fortunate enough to have great teachers at this school who prepared me well for the Independent School Entrance Examination (ISEE) for the three best schools in Boston. Thanks Sister Catherine and Ms. Desmond. I scored well enough to earn myself a spot in the prestigious Boston Latin School. To this day, I’m very proud to have attended a school with such history and significance in the development of United States, having had many founding fathers, leaders and successful alumni come from this school. This school had the best of the best that Boston had to offer, and I was quickly humbled by my amazingly intelligent peers. I was a C student for the first two years of attending the school. Despite my academic difficulties to start high school, I was able to make a great group of friends who I still keep in touch with today. We’ve all gone on to do very different things with our lives and careers, but at the time they were all excellent in school. Like author James Clear said in his book Atomic Habits, “Surround yourself with people who have the same goals as you. You’ll rise together.” However, there was one event that changed my life forever.
17 years ago as of the date of writing this post, I remember it like it was yesterday. It was a sunny Saturday afternoon. I was taking the MBTA from my house to North Station in Boston with my Physics project and Playstation Portable (PSP) in tow. I was on my way to my Dad’s restaurant in Rockport, MA. As a teenager, I was obsessed with playing video games and tinkering with technology. My PSP was my prized possession at the time. That device started my interest in software and networking. But this story isn’t about that. I remember sitting down on the Commuter Rail Train bound for Rockport and turning on my PSP, intending to kill some time on the train ride, but immediately didn’t feel right and turned it off. When I was at work, I didn’t think much of what bothered me on the train ride as I was fiddling around with my Physics project of making a flashlight. I don’t really remember much about the rest of that Saturday or the Sunday that followed. When I got to school on Monday, I received the news that changed the person that I was and the person that I would become.
As soon as I got to school, the air was a bit different than usual. There was commotion about something that happened over the weekend. I heard kids talking about a car accident. Then I learned that the person involved was my dear friend Stephanie Lam. She was struck by an SUV in Boston on Saturday. She was quickly rushed to the hospital but didn’t make it. I was in absolute shock. I thought to myself that I was so close to the site of the accident, maybe I could have done something. But there is no way I could have known. But I felt something was off. School became a blur as I was stuck in my own head with despair and disbelief.
I met Stephanie at the beginning of my sophomore year of high school in our geometry class. Stephanie had a ritual every morning where she would come pat me on the head and say “poofy.” My thick, straight, black hair has a tendency to grow in a spike, much like a porcupine. She marched to the beat of her own drum and didn’t let others dictate what she could or could not do. She inspired me in that way. She was my high school crush, a wonderful person who would go out of her way to make me feel welcome or even special. She was the girl I was going to ask out to the sophomore social. Even though I hadn’t known her long, she made a lasting impact on me. Losing her felt like the end of the world back then.
This was the first time I, and many of her friends, ever lost someone significant. The wake was two days and I stayed at the funeral home with her family and friends until it was time to leave on both days. The weeks that followed were spent remembering Stephanie. School was an afterthought and I barely passed some classes that year. I just wanted to feel whole again. My friends and I shared our grief and company the best way high schoolers know how. The remaining months of sophomore year were spent hanging out around the school, going out for food or playing basketball. I needed to be around my friends. Through the support of my friends and even my guidance counselor, I was able to recover after a few months. As someone who reflects a lot on things that happen in life, perhaps to a fault, I reflected on what Stephanie may have wanted for her friends. She wouldn’t have wanted us to be miserable forever. It was with this realization when I promised to myself, to Stephanie and to my friends that I would become someone who would make them proud.
Once school resumed for my junior year of high school, I was reinvigorated to do well. I think my peers and my teachers were able to see that and I turned my academics around. While I never became that best student again like I was in middle school, I didn’t need to be, didn’t want to be. I just wanted to be the best version of me. I took this energy and started extra curricular activities in the form of school clubs. During the summer of junior year, I was a volunteer at a summer school for elementary school students. By my senior year, I was a volunteer for one of the Assistant Headmasters, Mr. Fulton, performing various office tasks for him. However, he also provided great academic, career and life advice. I participated in six clubs, being Vice President of one club and the President of another. Our school clubs were a way for us to share and express our interests. My clubs consisted of Japanese music and culture, Video Games, Mahjong, Anime, and Photoshop (can’t remember the last one for some reason). My guidance counselor, Mr. Montague, was a big advocate for me and even made calls to colleges on my behalf. His support in my high school career was invaluable. He was a mentor but above all, he was a friend. Through all of this, I became closer to my friends, explored many interests and received invaluable advice from those around me.
I got into the college I want to attend and was excited for the people and experiences I had yet to encounter. What I came to realize is, the death of Stephanie and the support of my friends and mentors were the invisible force that guided me for the rest of my high school years, through college and thereafter. I’ll close by saying that there was, what can only be explained as a supernatural encounter or coincidence, that made me really have faith that Stephanie is looking down on her friends and letting us know that she’s alright and watching over us. We were burning letters that we wrote for her at the site of the accident, when I saw, if only for a brief moment, the letters LUV U appear in the flames of the paper. From then on, I knew I had to make Stephanie and those who supported me proud. Honor those who love and support you by giving it your best each and every day.
I’d like to give a special thanks to my friends who were there with me then and have remained by my side since that time 17 years ago. Thank you Sophia, Matt, Greg, Jeff, Le, Tim, Galin, Wilson and Liz for sticking with me all these years. I wouldn’t be me without you all.
The significance of the crane image here is there is an old Japanese folklore that if you make 1000 cranes, it can make wishes come true. My friends and I made 1000 cranes for Stephanie when she tragically passed away in 2005.
Credit for this image goes to https://savingcranes.org/education/origami-cranes/
