Photo by John Russell

Turning 21 seemed like it was going to be a big deal. After all, I was finally reaching the governmental "go-ahead" that teenagers and college students across the country seem to long for. And yet April 24, 2008, turned out to be nothing special--only a date on which the numbers on my ID officially qualified me for the things my receding hairline and 5 o'clock shadow already could give me. The balding, the touch of gray in my sideburns, the stresses of post-graduate planning, the uncomfortable glances I can now attract just by standing near a group of freshman girls at a party--have all started to make me feel old already.

To tell the truth, I spent my 21st birthday studying, and the day afterward taking exams.

But in an hour of reflection the evening after my birthday, a feeling not only of change but also of significance came over me. Thinking about my experiences thus far and the hardships I was preparing to undertake in the coming years, my mind turned to my parents.

They have often reminded me of what life was like for them at my age, in lectures much like those many children hear from their parents. But I knew my parents' experiences differed drastically from those of my friends' families. By the time they turned 30, my parents had lived through a governmental overthrow, a revolution, and an emigration halfway around the globe.

Most people can tell from my name alone that my heritage lies outside this nation's great borders. Born and raised in Lexington, Ky., I am the first-generation American from my family--quite literally. My mother, father and older sister traveled to the United States from Iran in 1983. The Islamic Revolution left my father, who worked for a Western company, without a job, struggling to support my mother and older sister, who was only 2 years old. Having spent his college years abroad in Lexington, my father returned to the city with them to start a new life. I was born four years later, and my younger sister two years after that.

In many ways I had a childhood that could be considered standard for an American boy. I was heavily involved in sports, spent a great deal of time hanging out with friends and classmates at the movies and the mall, listened to all the current Billboard hits, and adopted signature regional alterations to my speech like "y'all" and "good Lord" for a period of time.

There were also Persian versions of activities that made my upbringing unique. A lifelong soccer player as well as a champion high school coach, my father transferred his relationship with soccer to me when I was just 3. As my high school years approached, I signed up for wrestling--a sport that is a historic source of national pride (as well as frequent Olympic medals) in Iran.

When friends came to my home, they found themselves in a world of Persian rugs and paintings, bombarded by an abundance of food and hospitality. There is a common word in Persian culture for excessive kindness: tarof. To finish your dinner is a must, to forgo seconds almost an insult. While dinner with friends often consisted of eating out or deliveries, the average Persian dish would take at least two or three hours to prepare. When guests were coming, meal preparation could take the entire day as well as the night before. I had to finish my school lunches in half the amount of time as other kids; the other half I spent explaining to my classmates what it was I was eating.

Nevertheless, my appreciation for my cultural inheritance has increased as I have grown older. When I was 9, I spent a summer with family in Iran. I can remember seeing all the relatives I had only heard about before, though I strain to recollect my impressions of the place itself--the people, the landscape, the streets, or the atmosphere in Tehran, the capital city. What I remember best is that which Iranians like my family have continued in America: the abundance and importance of get-togethers with family and friends, the telling of stories and jokes, the gatherings around large tables of food and desserts, the playing of music, and the recitation of ancient poetry over a cup of tea.

Over time my ability to recognize a fellow Iranian has become increasingly uncanny. There's always something about the hair: the naturally jet-black color (or reddish or blonde augmentation for many women who have been in the U.S. for some time), the thick mustache under the protruding noses of older men, the darkened shadow of stubble on a younger one's face.

The dead giveaway, though, is always the eyebrows. It is what ancient and modern traditional painters employ to capture the classic Persian complexion: the broad, wide arc of the elegant female, and the thick, slightly lowered band of the man, who consequently conveys a tinge of austerity.

Not only have I used this sixth sense to identify Iranians among groups of people, I also have developed an interest in determining the heritage of all sorts of individuals. I'll even attempt, on occasion, to guess the heritage of my classmates.

One of my parents' greatest gifts was bestowed before I was even conscious of it. I was about 5 years old when I realized my other friends could not understand the language my parents were using around me--Persian, also known as Parsi or Farsi. I have often thought about how strange and fascinating it has been to understand another language even before I was capable of making my earliest memories.

As I grew older I realized I could understand a tongue that had been virtually unchanged for thousands of years and shared by my ancient ancestors. Because I could understand Persian, I could also understand bits and pieces of languages such as Dari, Armenian, Urdu, Turkish and Hindi--idioms whose regions reflect this ancient influence.

Today it's one thing to read translations from news coverage of infamous people like Osama bin Laden. It's a completely different feeling to be able to turn away from the television and still decipher what he's saying.

The experience of being Iranian-American has not been free of negative consequences. In the same way that the Iranian hostage crisis brought unwanted attention to my mother, father and older sister in the early 1980s, the events of Sept. 11 and the voice of bin Laden evoked an even greater sense of distrust, hate and misunderstanding. Before the end of that fateful day, students had already destroyed my father's car in the high school parking lot. In subsequent weeks they would petition to be removed from his classroom and send him threatening messages.

While I have been surrounded by good friends and caring people most of my life, I still know what it feels like to see the subtle change of facial expression when I tell a person I'm from Iran. I know what it's like to be "randomly" yet consistently selected for special screenings at the airport, or to make sure I shave right before I head out to catch a flight. Even though I'm not even Arab, having a surname that's separated by two letters from the word "Hussein" seems to be enough.

Nonetheless, were it not for these experiences, good and bad, I am certain I would not have encountered, nor even sought out, the others who have fundamentally shaped me into the person I am today. I will graduate in one year's time with a degree consisting of a main course of neuroscience with side dishes of psychology and philosophy along the way. In a quest to better understand the human mind, brain and being, I have sought to learn more about myself as well.

In many ways it seems my life of balancing cultures has led to a lifestyle of balancing interests. While my high school period was busy with these various activities-- wrestling, cultural organizations, violin, art, volunteer work and the like--the greater part of my career at Vanderbilt, I hope, will have been spent not only furthering my growth and education, but those of the community as well. For that reason, in my sophomore year, I founded what is now known as the Iranian Cultural Society at Vanderbilt.

Beneath the ever-looming tension and complexity of international politics and media coverage lie a very ancient civilization and tradition in Iran about which the majority of people in the Western Hemisphere--including myself--know far too little. It is a blessing to have lived in a place where these rich cultures and traditions have sprouted and grown through my life. My hope is that one day I may return to that other half of my identity and share my experience with others.

For children ages 1 to 4, the Susan Gray School provides intimate classes where typically developing children learn, play and grow alongside children with special needs. The education and environment at SGS are acceptance-based and allow children at all levels of physical and social development to thrive in a common setting.

For elementary education majors like me, the Susan Gray School (SGS) provides invaluable training. Originally named the Peabody Experimental School when it opened on the campus of Peabody College in 1968, SGS is devoted to educational research involving young children with developmental disabilities.

I did my first special education practicum at the Susan Gray School in the spring of 2003. Two years later, as part of the Peabody Academic Leaders (PALs) program, I had the opportunity to work and play with SGS kids for a second time.

My third experience at Susan Gray, however, in the summer of 2007, proved to be much different than the previous two. It began a new phase of my life in which the Susan Gray School family would play an important role.

It was last July, and I was glad to be back on the Peabody campus working with the children. We had been doing crafts inside, and after we finished painting, we headed outside for playtime. Play is an important part of the education at SGS, as it should be at any preschool. There is much research showing enormous positive benefits of play at an early age. That is why I was astonished when I went out onto the playground with the children that summer day.

As a college student walking across the 21st Avenue bridge, I had seen Susan Gray children playing outside many times before, but now I was viewing the playground through different eyes. While some children ran around freely, enjoying the playground equipment, the children with special needs and I sat at the top of a dirt-covered hill watching the others. These children were not able to experience the same quality of playtime as their peers. I knew right then that something had to be done.

What had happened to allow me such a moment of clarity? Two years prior to that July morning in 2007, I had found myself unable to function normally. I couldn't stand without getting dizzy, couldn't walk without pain. The lower half of my body swelled constantly. It was especially frustrating because this was the summer I had planned to get a kidney transplant in Maryland, where I reside when I'm not in Nashville. I had been diagnosed with kidney disease in high school, but had always managed to bounce back from any illnesses I'd faced. When my kidneys shut down following brain surgery I underwent in 2003, I went on dialysis. I had been on dialysis for a year and a half and had just gotten an MRI to clear me for transplant surgery.

The summer of 2005 was spent in confusion. No one could figure out just why my body was suddenly ailing. After a summer of dead-end doctor's appointments and tests, I decided to return to Vanderbilt to begin my junior year. Vanderbilt doctors were able to diagnose my disease, but at that time there was no known cause and no cure.

Kelly Finan wouldn't take no for an answer, and as a result all Susan Gray School students will have a playground they can enjoy. Photo by John Russell

It wasn't until many months of subsequent hospitalization and a LifeFlight trip back to Maryland to receive a kidney transplant that researchers figured out what was causing my illness. Numerous studies at Vanderbilt and Johns Hopkins concluded that the initial MRI I had in early summer 2005, compounded with the many MRIs I had during my year-long hospital stay, had left me debilitated. The contrast dye Gadolinium, given to make the imaging clearer, had wreaked havoc on my system. Finally, I was allowed to return to my home to recuperate in August 2006.

At home I began to realize that I faced a major adjustment in living as a handicapped individual. Although I was getting healthier each day, it was becoming apparent that I would never get my old life back.

My family was a constant reminder of how lucky I was to be alive and how much I had to be thankful for. Slowly I faced the harsh reality that my life was forever changed. We decided that, despite the obstacles that surely lay ahead, I needed to return to Vanderbilt and finish what I had started.

Along with thoughts of Vanderbilt came a strong desire to go back to volunteering at Susan Gray. It was an ideal opportunity, not only because I had been there before and it was located right on Peabody's campus, but also because I thought it might be the perfect spot for me to start my transition back to college life as a handicapped individual.

Before long, I was taking summer-session classes and was assigned to volunteer in a community organization for a social justice class. I met with Ruth Wolery, assistant professor of the practice of special education and director of the Susan Gray School, and thus became a part of the SGS family.

The children at Susan Gray didn't seem fazed by me, a volunteer teacher in a wheelchair, although they were fascinated with all its motorized bells and whistles. It looks like a mobile video game in the eyes of young children. At Susan Gray wheelchairs are, for some students, normal, and teachers impress upon the children the importance of acknowledging differences.

Even though the children certainly receive an excellent education, it was clear that something had to be done about what I witnessed that day on the dirt-covered hill. I felt that my life had been spared over the last few years and that I had been given a new purpose.

When I finished for the day, I met with Professor Wolery to find out how it might be possible to apply SGS's philosophy of acceptance and equality to the seemingly inequitable playground.

Since I first enrolled at Vanderbilt in the fall of 2002, there have always been construction projects. The Peabody College campus is undergoing a major expansion for The Commons. Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital are always expanding and adding facilities to help take care of the many lives Vanderbilt saves (including my own). Why was it that this playground seemed to be ignored?

Professor Wolery explained that SGS had been raising playground money for the past four years and had reached a total of $60,000, but that they would need to raise at least an additional $200,000 to start building a new playground. They had a detailed plan for the project and a great deal of motivation, but with all the new major projects that inevitably came up each year, the playground continually got pushed to the back burner.

My mind raced with possibilities. There are countless people out there, I thought, who would donate time and money to get this playground built if they knew what was happening. As many people had been an advocate for me through my various health complications, I needed to be an advocate for these children.

An annual SGS event called "Holidays Around the World," which celebrates diverse cultures, became a fundraiser for the playground in 2005 and 2006 at the suggestion of Ellen Brier, assistant dean for undergraduate student affairs at Peabody. Those of us planning the 2007 event began to meet weekly to determine how we could continue the tradition with a much larger goal. We knew if we wanted to raise large amounts of money, the right people would have to be involved.

My mentor, Ann Neely, a Peabody professor who is also director of undergraduate admissions and scholarships, came up with the idea that Vanderbilt's athletic fields are the university's playgrounds, and that the athletes rely on these playgrounds. I loved this idea and immediately called upon my friend Shan Foster, a senior on the men's basketball team. Shan has an incredible track record of extending his talents well beyond his playground, the basketball court. I was not surprised when he immediately agreed to help raise money for this cause. Shan's coach, Kevin Stallings, wanted to help as well. I also met with David Williams, vice chancellor for university affairs, who is in charge of athletics, and he pledged that the athletics program would match whatever was raised at the fundraiser.

I was ecstatic because we had come so far in such a short time. Donations were pouring in. My parents, who had been nothing but supportive and encouraging, decided they wanted to help out as well. They saw how enthralled I became with the children at SGS and the project itself. Their donation, along with countless others, brought us close to our goal by the night of the event in November. Vice Chancellor Williams announced that not only would he match whatever was raised, but that Athletics would fill the void of whatever was left.

With funding now in place, a playground for all children at the Susan Gray School will finally be built. I am overwhelmed by the generosity and kind spirit I have encountered everywhere I turn. The Vanderbilt community is incredible. The continuous support that SGS has received has caused me to realize that the physical situation I am in might not be "handicapped" after all.

The day of the Virginia Tech shootings, I realized that the weather was gorgeous in Nashville-- almost as gorgeous as it was on Sept. 11, 2001, in Washington, D.C.

There's something sick in the fact that I made that comparison.Why couldn't I just focus on the thing in front of me and say, "This is sad, this is awful, this is a tragedy"? Somehow, I became this sort of meteorological soothsayer weighing one against the other.

I don't think I'm the only one wrapped up in comparisons, though.We end up playing this surreal game of metric relativism with history all the time.Who suffered more, them or us? Which is worse, this or that? It's like we're arguing macabre baseball statistics.

In the days after the Tech massacre, I allowed myself to focus on the sheer amount of information before me, amassing all the facts and details so I didn't have to think about them too much. People I knew tended to dwell on the numbers rather than the stories, or rail against society for the failures of the university rather than face just how ubiquitous student shootings are.

For me, though, that behavior goes beyond the Virginia Tech tragedy.Whether it's my paradigm or a reaction to the times, I tend to shield myself from becoming emotionally invested in the issues of the day. I hate writing about serious things. I'm more at ease with obscure pop-culture references and dirty puns about well-regarded historical figures. As a generation, though, I think we've learned to compartmentalize and make such incidents impersonal because we know another tragedy lurks around the nearest corner.

Virginia Tech was personal for me, though. I grew up in McLean, Va., and I know a lot of people who go to Virginia Tech--probably more than 50. I'm only good friends with half a dozen or so. I only know 0.2 percent of the Tech undergrad population. After the shootings they were all healthy and safe and alive. But they all knew people who weren't. Caitlin,who's known as an unflinchingly sweet girl, sat in lockdown for two hours in French class in a building connected to Norris Hall and heard the gunshots.

Heidi--roommate of my friends Abby and Ryan--was shot in the leg.

Adrienne, the elementary school friend with whom I worshiped at the altar of 11- year-old cool--a Backstreet Boys concert-- planned on going to the University of Virginia together with her cousin Reema. They'd wanted to go to school together for a long time, apparently. Adrienne got in.Her cousin did not and went to Virginia Tech instead. On April 16, Reema was shot and killed in French class.

The boyfriend of that girl I never really liked, the one who always talked about the Yankees on the bus during our freshman year of high school--he died, too.

I feel detached from those people, though, like I'm looking at them through some sort of really thick veil. Maybe this is a kind of Facebook curse: The more information out there, and the more quickly it's available about people you barely know and never see, the farther removed you are from them. Or maybe if the tragedy weren't so random, if the shooter weren't frozen in time in that one photo, draped in black, arms outstretched, guns brandished, I'd feel differently.He didn't even know any of them. But what if he had? It wouldn't really change anything. The 33 victims would still be 33 victims.

Our parents live with the paralyzing fear of getting the horrible call those 33 families received that Monday morning in April. This is not the first fear their generation has faced, however. They grew up with the lingering dread of the Cold War and a dark, dismal parade of assassination and war. From Vietnam to JFK,MLK, RFK--the letters begin to run together. How do you aspire to anything when the heroes are falling down? They did, though, and they achieved a lot. They faced tragedy, too, and we shouldn't forget that.

Fears change, however, and our tragedies are different.We saw Oklahoma City at age 7, Columbine at 11, Sept. 11 at 13, the Beltway sniper at 14,Katrina at 17.We saw bombings in Kenya, London and Madrid.We saw the tsunami.We have grown up with the idea that it could be us.We're not desensitized to tragedy--at least I don't think we are-- but we're not surprised, either.

The moment I knew my friends were fine, I knew that someone else was finding out theirs weren't, someone's parents were finding out that their child was not coming home. How many more of these days will we see? How many more of us will die? Why us?

Those who died weren't perfect; they were just like us. They went to classes and parties. They had career goals and doubts. They had people who loved, liked and hated them. They succeeded and they failed, and they probably didn't want to go to class that morning. They were us. That was the real horror in the Virginia Tech massacre.We're not perfect, but we didn't deserve this.Nobody does, and yet we're not surprised anymore.

Our generation seems to bear the burden of knowing the unthinkable will happen. Towers, cities, and that sense of security we have will fall at times. Perhaps, though, that idea is also a grace for us.We face impossible issues and problems, but if we've learned anything, it's that the impossible can become reality.We can make the good kind of impossible happen, and when the bad kind jumps out and steals our favorite purse, we've seen that we can survive that, too.

I don't think tragedies like these can be left aside; we need to be stronger, better and kinder after something like the Virginia Tech massacre because we have to make that day mean something. The fallen deserve better; their families deserve better;we deserve better.We must stick together, adapt, and make sure this never happens again.We're entrenched in the most serious game of Red Rover ever played.

In the end, though, this life is what we have together--with our friends and our families. It's not grand gestures that keep us together; it's the everyday. Small acts of kindness and simple words of gratitude can change a lot.We don't have to be valiant heroes or saints. Just facing and struggling with our weaknesses are enough, to me anyway. We're not all the same, but that can make us stronger if we let it. We share a country, a past, and--I hope--a future together.

At the time of the Virginia Tech tragedy, many people, including myself, repeated over and over again that we were all Hokies and would be for a long time.Now, though,Virginia Tech seems to have slipped from our collective consciousness. The tragedy itself is incomparable, but to forget it, to gloss over our fears and our parents' fears, to simply wait for the next April 16, would be an even greater tragedy.