A C H A P E L TA L K
by Noah Aaron ’18 January 23, 2018
My Inspiring Big Sister
A
fter finally building up the strength, I walked up the steps and looked at the doorbell. This wasn’t my first time coming to the house, but this time sure was going to be much different. Earlier that day, Mrs. Maqubela had sent me an email that said (and of course I read it in her accent), “Noah, stop by my house sometime today. We need to talk about your grades.” I’m not going to lie; someone did need to ask me about my academic life. I currently had three C’s and zero A’s after my Fourth Form spring midterms. My life was starting to get away from me. I was once told that there are three aspects to life as a student. There’s your academic life, your athletic life, and your social life. You can easily balance two, and the third must go if you want to go to bed at night. My first two Groton terms, I chose athletics and academics, leaving my social life off to the side, knowing that’s what my parents would have wanted me to do. But in that third term, I took on the challenge of balancing all three. I was staying up into the late hours of the night doing the work that I easily could have done hours before, but I wanted to spend my time playing 2k and hanging out with the Fifth Formers in my dorm. My body couldn’t sustain that, for I couldn’t handle the lack of sleep. So, I just stopped doing my work at the highest level. During school, I felt myself getting behind all the kids around me, and I kept saying I wouldn’t get distracted and that I’d go catch up, but every night I chose to hang out instead. Now to get back to the story, I pushed the doorbell, and waited. I thought about running, but it was too late. When the door swung open, Mr. Maqubela saw it was me, and his smile immediately turned into a stern look of disappointment. “How are you doing, Mr. Maq?”
56
Groton School Quarterly
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Spring 2018
“Not too good. Come in, Noah!” Mr. Maqubela proceeded to lecture me for the next thirty minutes about all the people in my life I was letting down. That list included the Maqubelas, my parents, and even my ancestors, for (and I quote), “Our ancestors did not survive the middle passage for you to be wasting your opportunities.” My fellow AfricanAmerican friends had told me about the time when Mr. Maqubela had told them the same thing, so I knew I wasn’t special. But still, his lecture hit hard, because there’s no worse feeling in the world than letting down the people you love. After Mr. Maqubela finished, Mrs. Maqubela walked into the room. I was expecting the same wrath to come down on me, but she simply sat down next to me and asked me how I was doing. My voice cracked as I forced the words out of my mouth: “Not so well. I’m letting everyone down and the pressure is just too much. I can’t do it.” She grabbed my hand, and looked me in my eyes as if I were her own. She said, “Noah, I want you to be the best Noah you can be. I know your parents have an idea of what you should be, I know my husband has an idea of what you should be, but that doesn’t matter. What I want is for you to be the best Noah you can be.” In that moment, I didn’t know what to say, but now that I have the opportunity to, I want to say thank you to Mrs. Maqubela. That was exactly what I needed. At that moment in my Groton career, I was having fun. I was beginning to understand the rhythm of school life and I had found my group of friends, but something just wasn’t right. I liked Groton, but I wasn’t liking myself at Groton. Your advice gave me the structure to figure that problem out.