Angel in disguise

I don’t believe in angels, but I met one in 1975. In those days, girls did not go to engineering school. We were most unwelcome. We were taking high-paying jobs away from men who deserved them. And besides, we couldn’t possibly be smart enough to get through the program. Yep, I get cognitive dissonance too.

To be fair, Tulane University’s engineering school was vastly more challenging than I had anticipated. School had always been a breeze where I stayed at the top of my classes without cracking a book. Suddenly, I was in a college where everyone else was a top student too. I was drowning in a firehose of physics beyond anything I was ready for. I was flailing and maybe even failing. Maybe those skeptical professors were right. The humiliation was too much and at one point I sat on the quad in tears staring at a phone card (remember those?). I was going to admit failure and call mom for a plane ticket home. My lifelong dream to be a scientist/engineer was in ashes and I dreaded the smug satisfaction I knew I would face when I got back to Memphis.

Then an older student, a stranger, sat on the grass next to me. He said something like, "Whatever is hurting you, you can get to the other side of it." I don’t remember a single word of the conversation that followed, or the student’s name or even vaguely what he looked like. I didn’t even notice him leave. What I did notice was that the humiliation and sense of failure were gone. I wasn’t as smart as I had thought, but I was plenty smart enough to get through engineering school.

Over the next weeks and months, I looked for that student to thank him. Tulane doesn’t have a huge campus; it shouldn’t have been that hard. But I never saw him again. I doubt he knew that his kindness, insight and compassion changed my life that day. Without him, I think I would have made that phone call and missed out on a long, fascinating, and fulfilling career helping to heal a wounded world. Maybe we aren’t meant to know when we have changed someone’s life for the better. It’s enough to know that if we are ever given the chance to say the right thing at the right time, we shouldn’t pass it up.

Munsell McPhillips has lived on Amelia Island for 22 years. She did finish that engineering degree and two more as well. She and her husband, Robert Prager, built an engineering company dedicated to river restoration, urban flood protection, and sustainable design. Nowadays, she talks about the importance of maritime forests at every opportunity.

If you have a story you'd like to share here in the Fernandina Observer — about a neighbor or friend or stranger or business that showed kindness, or about kindness and compassion in general — please contact Peggie Weeks at pegweeks@gmail.com