Stephanie Crosby, Ph.D., by Arien Reed

We found no reason not to love you, from the way you shrieked whaAAT?? to the stubborn

rebellion of your gloaming brown curls, and it struck us, the command of your spine, when

we walked in and found you standing there in the dark cave of our lobby, its walnut walls

seeming colder as the student’s words became bricks and he threw them at you. You just

stood there, listening, giving nothing in return but the true sincerity required to purge his

self-pity. You who brightened our walls with Calvin & Hobbes posters and graduation

photos, who walk no faster than one mile per minute, Storm Trooper purse bouncing

against your ribs, who laugh at your own mistakes just before you add to them, who

smoothed my Safe Space poster over your office door with only 27 staples and that

“what’s next?” smile, who encouraged others to de-gender their language as if you could

see, even before me, the trans identity within my timidity. You who would even counsel us

from the floor, holding your head, and in your hospital bed, tapped on a laptop, chained to

IV’s. You poured your smiles, your screams, your flesh into your stubborn dream of student

success. You showed disability is not an excuse or impossibility but a challenge to be daily

overcome. Where you saw ravines, you built bridges from your blood, enslaving yourself

to your desk as though rest is only for the stillborn. You stood there until he lost his fire and

your stillness said all he needed to hear. Our respect always knew you commanded it, but

among all the laughter and your gleaming eyes, we somehow never knew your silence

commanded it, too.