My earliest recollection of UC Davis is, ironically, a sad one. When I was 6 years old, my grandpa George died of lung cancer. In his honor, his co-workers in the accounting office on the fourth floor of Mrak Hall planted a sequoia sempervirens redwood tree on the north side of the building. My first memory of Davis is the ceremony dedicating the tree to him. Although at the time it probably stood no more than 12 feet tall, from the point of view of a 6-year-old girl, the tree was gigantic. My little sister and I could easily peer under its lowest branches to read the dedication: "In memory of George A. Cook, our friend and co-worker, 19181981." After the ceremony, there was a reception in the accounting office with a big cake and punch. I remember this because, after insisting on being the one to carry the cake to the car, I dropped it, face down, on the asphalt and promptly burst into tears.
After that, going to visit "George's tree" became a yearly ritual. During the visit, my sister and I would stand in front of the tree while my mother took our annual photographs, which we would later use to measure its--and our--growth. The day was always capped by a promised excursion to feed the ducks in the arboretum. At an age when a single season felt like an eternity, I thought the college students we passed were so grown up that I would never be as old as they were.
When I was 9 years old, my family and I moved to Taipei, Taiwan, where my parents taught at and my sister and I attended the Taipei America School, but we continued to visit George's tree every summer. Each year we visited Davis, the tree had grown a little bit taller. And because I had grown, too, every year I noticed more about the area that surrounded the tree. And even when the duck pond had lost some of its magic and the students who passed didn't seem much older than I was, I continued to enjoy visiting the tree, if only to be reminded that there was a time when I could stand under its very lowest branches, when I had cried of embarrassment from dropping a cake, when I was scared of the bossy geese that tried to grab the bread crumbs from my hands, and a time when I thought I would never be grown up.
When I was trying to decide which colleges to apply to during my junior year of high school, I was surprised at my mother's suggestion that I apply to UC Davis. Perhaps because I had always seen the campus as a visitor--and a visitor to a tree and some ducks at that--I had never thought of it as a school I might one day attend. Yet that summer I came to Davis as another kind of visitor. And as our walking tour passed George's tree, my mother and I smiled to one another. Towering above us, the tree was one of the tallest there.
After having been a student at UC Davis for almost three years, it amazes me to think of all that I have already learned and the many ways that, just like my grandfather's tree, I have grown and changed. Perhaps this is why the tree is so special to me. For not only does it remind me of all I once was, it also assures me of all I may aspire to be. And when I think of all I have accomplished at Davis and the many more things I hope to accomplish in the future, I feel safe in knowing that on the south end of campus, just in front of Mrak Hall, a tree continues to grow.
-- Willow Cook begins her senior year at UC Davis this fall
