Yes, I think it is safe to say I have lost at least some of my innocence. Happy Valley weather alone can take what was once a clean mouth and turn it dirty with just one four-hour time period. Anyone that has ever experienced the Valley's unruly weather changes can attest to this.
But aside from the weather, it is also safe to say that when you live amongst 43,000 college students, all from different walks of life, different parts of the world, with different ideas and ideals, you become exposed to a bigger picture. This is a picture of a lot of ugly (even more the reason of my lost innocence) but also a picture of great, great beauty. This beauty took my heart, full of a million and more hopes and dreams, and tore it right open - only to make room for bigger hopes, bigger dreams, more aspirations.
This is easy to imagine when you consider what the past four years has involved. I can't even begin to make a list. This list would include things that I never even thought were possible. Over $20 million raised For The Kids, for example. Failing that stupid Chem 110 final. Or actually getting maced. (I told you - it was good, bad, and ugly.)
But today.. today takes the cake. Today will never, ever be forgotten. Because today, regardless of Happy Valley's insistence for gray clouds and frigid wind, the sky got a lot more blue and white.
I have certifiably seen, heard, and felt it all now.
Today Penn State lost its hard-working dad, its unwavering father figure, its fired-up coach, its respected leader, its high-water-khaki-wearing with glasses and a smile, beloved Joe Paterno.
And as JoePa leads WE ARE chants up there in Heaven, as I am 100% sure he is doing at this very moment, the Penn State community, lovingly known to me as my "extended family," is left to mourn, to reflect, and to move on.
I have done my mourning. One look at the front of my dark blue PSU sweatshirt, with its salt-stained dried-up rivers of old tears, can tell you how much I mourned this morning when I got the gut-wrenching news of his passing.
I have begun my reflecting. I don't believe this step ever fully passes. The extent to which I realize how much JoePa has changed my life will probably never be complete simply because he has made Penn State what it is today. He began all of these amazing traditions that I will forever follow and some day teach to my kids and my kids' kids and anyone that means anything to me in my life.
And now, moving on doesn't seem so difficult. JoePa has taught us how to move on - with dignity, with poise, with faith in the fellow man, with honor. It won't be easy - 60 years of dealing with 43,000 college kids as neighbors couldn't have been easy - but we're equipped to handle JoePa's passing because JoePa lived his life the way he did and we were blessed enough to witness it.
If we can hold onto the morals and principles Joe Paterno showed us through the way he led his football team, his university, and his own life, and put them into practice in our own lives, we can successfully move on into this big, ugly, beautiful world as great people - Penn Staters - keeping JoePa alive in spirit all the while.
Because legends never die.
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