Day 67 - ACROSS THE DECADES AND AROUND THE WORLD

Yesterday I logged on to Zoom and learned how to work a new feature “share my screen.” Like most of us, I have been using Zoom for meetings and happy hours (okay, mostly happy hours, and meetings that turned into happy hours), but tonight I am taking it international.

In the Fall of 2018, I was invited to speak to the Notre Dame Club of Guatemala. It was an amazing trip, with a fascinating tour of the countryside and local history, culminating with a roof-top event (over looking the lights of Guatemala City) where I spoke to a group of Notre Dame alumni, friends, and families. My hosts for the trip included an alumna who is (much) younger than I am, and an alumnus who graduated a few years before me. I had never met them, and yet they welcomed me into their homes, their workplace, and their lives as though I was family. Of course they did; we are Notre Dame alumni, and this is the Notre Dame Family.

One of the things I love most about Notre Dame are the people I meet across the decades and around the world. There is a joke: How do you know someone went to Notre Dame? Answer: They will tell you. That’s true. We are loud and proud. But we are also quiet and humble. We are taught to reach out and embrace, to be welcoming and inclusive. And one of the many, many things I enjoy about my “job,” my calling or my vocation as a speaker, is being welcomed into the lives of different Notre Dame alumni.

Tonight I return to Guatemala and all Notre Dame Clubs in Latin America to share my story once again. We will connect as a family the way all of us are connecting with family, online. And while this pandemic has little to do with my accident and injury, one overarching theme remains the same: the importance of community, family, and faith.

I look forward to the time when I can travel again and speak in person. But until then, I am grateful for technology that allows me to connect with my (ND) family.