Yesterday, Saturday, April 30th, Campus East renamed its dining hall "The George Matchett Dining Hall." There was a small ceremony inside the dining hall to reveal the gold plaque, emblazoned with a few sentences about George and why the dining hall was being renamed after him. George's family, including his mother, father, sisters, aunts, and uncles, came to the ceremony. About 100 students from campus piled into the dining hall to listen to James Atkinson, the Director of Campus East, speak about George, and watch George's parents unveil the new plaque. George used to spend a lot of time in the dining hall, so that's why it was named after him. It was not uncommon to go to the dining hall early in the morning and see George there, and then come in during the afternoon for lunch and still see him sitting there. Because everyone knew George, people were always sitting with him, and as the hours passed, there was a steady rotation of people sitting at the table with George. And the great thing about that was you could always count on meeting someone new at the table when you were with George--his whole persona made people feel comfortable around others they didn't know.
I had the wonderful opportunity to talk to George's mom for several minutes. At first I was nervous about meeting George's mom; I wrote a letter to his family telling them how much George meant to me and all that he taught me, so I wanted to give it to them when they came for the ceremony. I think I was nervous because I didn't want to cry in front of them, because they all seemed to be handling the situation with such strength. I soon realized, however, what a sweet person George's mom was; she shared stories with me about George's time spent in England as a primary school teacher and his travels in the U.S.
The definite high of my day was when George's mom told me she would write a letter back... and that she would include stamps in the envelope so I could write them again whenever I wanted : )
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