Grieving

According to the U.S. Department of Education, only 45 percent of the professors all over the nation have tenure, which allows the professors to permanently teach in that college or university. According to the author, tenure is "the PhD's holy grail" (Durham 61). Source: laschoolreport.com

            Meenakshi Gigi Durham's story Grieving is about her husband, Dallas, and his passion for his job as a professor. The author, who did not like her job, could not understand how important teaching was for Dallas until he had been denied tenure at the University where he and Durham taught. The denial of the tenure came as a surprise to the whole family because Dallas was the kind of a person who "can walk into a room without notes or preparation and earn a standing ovation" (Durham 60). Unlike the author, he knew that he wanted to become a professor from the beginning and ran towards his goal until he was admitted to an elite doctoral program. Dallas had everything to receive the tenure, and yet he was denied, which caused him to grieve for a long period of time.  Dallas tried to persuade the administrator to review his file, and to reconsider the decision that the university made. Eventually, the provost reversed the tenure denial and apologized to Dallas that he had to "'go through hell in the meantime" (Durham 66). The author compares this situation with an another situation in which a woman was told that she had six months to live, but then the tumor she had miraculously disappeared. Durham uses this comparison to show how a life or a job will never be the same after someone experiences a grief. Because Dallas faced the denial, he was able to see the tenure in a different perspective, with a better appreciation. The author's purpose behind writing this story is to show the people who face hardships every day that without grief, many things will be taken for granted and will not be fully appreciated. Durham uses series of quotes and information that not only add on the credibility to the story, but also create a flow in her writing. I  thought that the author effectively wrote her story of her husband's experience to deliver her message and I now believe, as Ralph Waldo Emerson says, that "Grief too will make us idealists."