“What about the bunch of you?” Sam asked. Of the eight adults at dinner, only one had finished college in four years. All of us professionals, three had never gotten degrees, one had dropped out of high school but still ended up with a BA in philosophy, one had started her degree in her 30’s, Eric also didn’t get his BS until his late 30’safter attending four different undergraduate schools, and my own college history included a bad marriage break for a year and a half.
“The world is different now,” Eric said. “You need a degree.”
“Look,” I said. “This is the path you’re on right now. Stay on it and see where it leads. Life is more about floating down river than it is about marching across a field.”
“Where did you hear that?” John asked.
“I made it up.”
Two months later, Eric was dead, at 54, from metastatic ocular melanoma that we’d had no idea was busy eating away his insides. The river got really turbulent for a good while, and still does from time to time, but we’re still floating and the water is still moving to the sea
Grace Mattern 
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