Bar exam
In case you weren’t aware, there are 3rd year law students in full fledged panic mode right about now. The bar exam takes place next Tuesday and Wednesday all across the US. Michael was in this place last year and thankfully it is behind him and he passed! This weekend I am going out to San Diego to celebrate the life of my friend who passed away last year. We are all going to get together and relive all the memories of our dear friend. You might be wondering, how on earth do these two events have anything to do with each other? Well let me tell you…
Michael LaPrade died on July 24th, 2011 while we were diving the Andrea Doria.
My husband was taking the hardest test of his life on July 26th and July 27th, 2011
I made the decision to not tell him about the events on my dive trip when I returned. I did not want him to be pre-occupied, concerned, distracted, etc. while trying to focus for 8 hours of testing/day. Lying to my husband for those 3 days was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do.
Thankfully my mother and sister were there to comfort me and he was glued to a desk so I didn’t see him that much. I even lied to my coworkers when they asked how my trip went to avoid bursting into tears at the very thought of what happened. I managed to keep it a secret but I felt terrible when I had to finally tell him. Here he was, extremely happy to have the Bar exam behind him and I break the awful news.
[As a side note, my husband did not know LaPrade (he was a friend from when I lived in San Diego)…if he had I might have told him]
I do not regret my decision in the end and I feel that I ‘took one for the team‘ since on some level, our future depended on that one stupid test. Though, at the time, I really questioned my decision. I was terrified that he would read something in the news or hear about it somehow.
To Be Continued… Sorry, I couldn’t really figure out how I wanted to wrap this post up.
By not telling coworkers and holding off telling my husband I really think it just fueled the denial. Denial is strange because it’s not that I didn’t think it happened, it is just a level of shock while your mind tries to piece everything together. For me, it was a state where if I didn’t have to talk about it or think about it, I was ok. It took a really long time for reality to set in and then even longer to accept that reality.
And since I still can’t figure out any better way to tie these two seemingly unrelated event together, i’ll leave you with a picture of me and LaPrade the night before he died and one of my husband after getting sworn in (as close to passing the bar as I could find a picture for).
