I hope you’ll grant me license to offer some different thoughts in this space than the traditional Fall roster of alumni events.

Three years ago, persons with long Wilson histories of dedication and hard work, asked/cajoled/strong-armed me to accept the AAWC presidency.

I was gob-smacked in response, and immediately pictured myself as a six-year-old, when Pa unscrewed the training wheels and launched me wobbling down the street on a “grown up” bike.

AAWC Board doings are always a bit of a ride for all directors, however—and this is important—-for some time what has stood out to me in sharp relief is what the years can bring about, as Wilson acquaintances become Wilson attachments, and end up being Wilson full-blown, you-are-part of-my-DNA, abiding friends.

Nowhere was this more apparent than our class’s 50th reunion Conococheague, where, with our senior pictures, were glimpses of our current lives, with family and career updates, notable milestones, and frank, wistful, funny summations of our lives, along with remembrances of Wilson rituals, pranks, study anxieties, and related angst.

But above all else, were the recountings of friendships forged in those weird, coming-of-age years and the sustained, profound links that grew from those odd, marvelous times.

Among the many gifts Wilson bestows is the ability to meet, cultivate, and rejoice in those relationships that make us human and give us glimpses of the ineffable that makes life a grace.

As it goes with every class, this summer, 1968 lost a member who was gifted in forming a loving community from a disparate hodgepodge of first-years teetering on the verge of adulthood.

“That looks like a nice girl,” my mother said on moving-in day, nudging me across the hall of what was then Main East, “Go talk to her.”

Talk we did, and with four other Wilsons, kept up the talk and love for over 62 years.
“My dear, lifelong friends,” our friend had said before she fell asleep, “what a gift to
have had them in my life.”

The poet John O’ Donohue said of the dead, “Now they dwell inside the
rhythm of breath, as close to us as we are to ourselves.”

I’m not alone in missing a Wilson friend. And none of you, I imagine, are either.

Patricia W. Bennett ’68
President, AAWC