A Little Red Box

This past week, Mark received a box in the mail.  I only saw the mailing label side of it and wasn't sure what it was, but when I was sorting the mail, it flipped over...and I just about flipped out.  It was a box from the Fisher School of Business at The Ohio State University (that's the official name, but let's just go with Ohio State, shall we?)

Two weeks ago, Mark received notification that he was accepted to Ohio State for their MBA program.  This was after Illinois had conditionally accepted him back in February, pending him finding a marketing internship this summer.  When he reported back to Illinois a couple of weeks ago that he had indeed found the internship, Illinois told him that they weren't sure anymore that they wanted to accept him.  He is also still sitting on the waiting list for the Wisconsin MBA program.

So back to the box.  Mark wanted me to video myself opening it so that everybody could see what was inside.  It was a super fun box to open, and Mark probably should have opened it himself, but nobody wanted to wait.  In the box was a "Welcome Home" card for Mark, expressing congratulations about being accepted, and an explanation of what a buckeye is.

Obviously, we Kennedys know what a Buckeye is, seeing as it represents the great rivalry between
Michigan and Ohio State.  But Ohio State REALLY loves their buckeyes.  In the box was a chocolate chip cookie with the Ohio State logo on it, a lei made of plastic buckeyes with scarlet and grey beads in between, actual candy buckeyes (which our family will readily admit to DEVOURING anytime we've been offered one), and a leather luggage tag with the name of the business school.  All of this in a fun pile of silver tinsel confetti which I found KitTen eating later.

It was about THE funnest box I've seen in a long time.  I joked on the video that "Mark, I think you have to go to Ohio State now." ;-)

However, as is usually the case with my musings, the box took on a much deeper meaning soon after. There was a very distinct relief and pride that came with that box.  Fisher was Mark's top pick of business schools (he applied to five), and it was the one that Mark was hoping to get into the most.  It was the one that he would think about daily, and the one where he would check his email frequently for any kind of notification.  And to be honest, it was the only business school that took him without reservation.  In other words, they WANTED him.

Mark's life has been situation after situation where Mark isn't quite wanted.  He is almost never the first pick.  Some examples:

1.  At Interlochen, Mark was never first horn.  The best he did was during his last summer when he sat second horn.  In other words, he never got to stand at the end of a performance for recognition.  He never got the big solos.  And even when his brass quintet was the best at Interlochen, he didn't get to make a recording of their performance in the recording studio (like every other top ensemble), because the radio already had a recording of the piece they were playing.

2.  When Mark applied for a internship with the State Department, he was the "alternate".  They never contacted him afterwards.

3.  In high school, Mark wasn't chosen for any of the scholarships.  In fact, he only got to play the concerto with the band his senior year because the butt-kissing girl who was initially chosen was being chosen for too many things and so the conductor threw the opportunity to Mark.

4.  When Mark applied for the FLAS (Foreign Language and Area Studies) fellowship, he was the "alternate" the first year.  Just three weeks before school began, he was informed that someone else had rejected it and Mark could accept it.  He scrambled to fit the eight credits required into his schedule.  The next year, Mark applied again, and again was the alternate.  This time, he didn't get the chance to accept it until one full month after classes had begun.  I don't even want to think about what he had to do to rearrange his schedule, including starting a science class one month late.  The third year, he got nothing.

5.  Mark never sat first horn in orchestra during his four years of playing at Michigan.  Instead, a jerk kid who had watched Mark ascend through the ranks at Interlochen and had vowed to become like Mark, bypassed Mark in the first year of his playing and never looked back.

6.  Mark never lived on or near campus.  Mark always appreciated how much it cost John and me to send him to Michigan as an out-of-state student.  While it would have been so much easier for him to live on or near campus, he wanted to save us money so he either lived with my mom (that alone should earn him a reward in heaven), or he lived in Ypsilanti, resulting in a 30-minute commute one way each day.  He couldn't have the easy student life.

7.  Mark couldn't be a rower.  When he returned from his mission, his horn teacher basically told him that he could choose music or rowing, but not both.  Mark loved rowing.  It was probably one of the best moments in college for him, but he gave it up because music was what was paying for half of his tuition each semester.  He wouldn't be able to go to Michigan without music.

8.  I hate to bring this up, but Mark wasn't even chosen in his first engagement.  That woman basically let Mark know that she felt she could do better.  That he was second-rate.  We saw a little of what Mark went through emotionally afterwards, but nobody will ever really know.

Mark though, to his credit, has never given up on working hard, and he has never complained about any of this.  He has been frustrated and hurt by pretty much all of it, and he has fought feelings of complete defeat, but he just keeps going.  He has worked like a dog through college, ending up with two completely separate degrees, while holding down part-time jobs the entire time.  And this month, he will graduate cum laude from one of the top universities in the nation.

So back to the little red box.

When that thing came in the mail, it felt like validation for all that Mark has gone through.  It felt like the Fates were telling him that he had paid his dues through disappointment, struggle and hard work, and that it was finally his moment to have someone appreciate him.  It wasn't Illinois, telling him that they would accept him IF...and it wasn't Wisconsin, coming back to him when enough people hadn't accepted offers to the Wisconsin business school, asking if Mark was still interested.  It was a school saying WE WANT YOU.  You are of value to us.  We NEED you.

And while I was telling all of this to Mark on the phone, I could hardly express my feelings through the tears.  It has been such a long haul for him, and there's nothing more that we parents want to see for our kids than them being happy through feeling appreciated and wanted.  (As a side note, one of the most important aspects of friendship to me, either from relatives or friends, is to know that they care.  That's why I couldn't have picked better than John.)

This won't be the best decision of his life--he has made more meaningful decisions that include mission and a marriage--but I can appreciate Ohio State's marketing campaign.  Brainwashing is a good strategy in business.

I have no idea where Mark will end up in the Fall--that decision is up to him and Allison--but Mark can always hold the feather in his cap that he was accepted full-boar to a business school as a music and Russian major with relatively no business experience because he deserves it, and because he worked his tail off for it.  Good job, my angel boy.