No Grilled Cheese, No Peace: On Grief, Graduation, and Growing Up
They said Dewey's would be back by the Fall semester. Then, Fall Reading Week. Then Winter Break. Then, Winter Reading Week. Now it's finals season in my final semester, and still—no menu, no magic, no grilled cheese of the week. What was I supposed to do all semester? Where would I seek solace when I needed it most?
Senior year is meant to be the conclusion. The hardest and the most meaningful part of the degree. A victory lap. A final chapter. And yet, the backbone of my academic career, Dewey's original menu, was gone in the blink of an eye.
I was not prepared for grief to take the shape of a missing grilled cheese.
I'd come back for my final year ready to tackle papers, grad school applications, my GAPSS VP role, and maybe even a little bit of fun in between. But I didn't expect to lose the place that anchored me between classes, between midterms, between the moments when everything felt like too much.
Dewey's wasn't just a campus bar. It was a ritual. A plate of UASU fries during music bingo. A pint before a dreaded 6–9 pm econ class that somehow introduced me to two of my closest friends years into my degree. A safe haven after presentations, group projects, and days that felt heavier than they should have. It was where we celebrated the end of class and exams—sometimes even with our professor at the table, buying the first round.
It was where we felt like university students, not in the lecture hall sense, but in the living it sense. But of course, Dewey's was just one part of it.
I'll miss the long days on campus when I'd arrive in the morning and leave after dark, lugging a backpack that got heavier with each passing hour and still, somehow, never managed to get any work done. Taking the train home in the dark and seeing the glow of downtown over the river valley. I'll miss the buzz of campus in early fall, the empty hallways during Reading Week, and that feeling when the first real snow hits and suddenly it's time to lock in.
I'll miss GAPSS and always wish I found it sooner. The meetings that turned into yap sessions, the planning that turned into chaos, and the chaos that somehow always turned into something we were proud of. The people who showed up, who cared, who somehow made things happen even when we were all running on caffeine and a dream. The events, the emails, the newsletter drafts written with only 10 minutes left before they were due. I wouldn't trade it for anything.
I'll miss the friendships that bloomed out of shared classes, class discussions, and sheer proximity. The ones built over 5th-floor Rutherford sessions that turned into life talks, over coconut fogs from Remedy in CAB, silent passerby waves in the hallways of Tory. The kind of friendships that sneak up on you until you realize they're the reason this place ever felt like home.
I moved here four years ago for this school. I knew I wanted to come here when I was fifteen, before I even knew what I wanted to study, before I knew how much I'd grow or how much this place would shape me. Now I'm twenty-five and getting ready to leave. Come fall, I'll be in grad school, chasing a dream career I didn't even know existed a few years ago. I've been accepted to programs that felt impossible, and somehow—somehow— I'm here, at the end.
And knowing that one day, very soon, I'll walk off this campus for the final time? It's a lot. It's heavy and hopeful all at once. It's hard to say goodbye to something that became a part of you.
Sure, I won't miss the stress, the deadlines, the classes (Sust 250, I still hate you), and the hours in the library. But I’ll miss being in the place where I found myself more and more each year. The friends who might be the only reason I made it through. The profs who believed in me, more than I believed in myself. The student group that reminded me why community matters. The random campus moments that will stick with me forever. And yeah, even the grilled cheese that never came back.
Dewey's didn't ruin my senior year—not really. It just reminded me how much I loved it.
All of it.