I came to Gainesville under the backdrop of loss. I moved into town in October 2022. A few months prior, my mother had committed suicide just after moving us to Florida. I had no other family and no connections in the state, or here in Gainesville.
I remember one of my first weeks here, how I found myself walking down the street and thinking, “I’m shipwrecked, and I don’t even have a home to return to.”
In the epic Roman poem “The Aeneid,” titular hero Aeneas ends up shipwrecked on the coast of Africa shortly after his home, Troy, was destroyed in a war. Mustering his strength, he tells his companions “forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit,” meaning that perhaps, one day, they would look back at their misfortune and be comforted to know they made it through.
I couldn’t get myself to believe the sentiment. It took everything to fight the urge to jump from the sidewalk into the road.
Suffice it to say, I hated Gainesville, and I believed I always would. For a good while longer, I did. Today, though, as I prepare to move across the country, it hurts to say goodbye. In large part, I have The Alligator to thank.
Joining the paper forced me to engage with our community. I went to events I otherwise never would have, talked to people and learned our history. Eventually, I learned so much of it that I wrote my senior history thesis on Alachua County.
More importantly, though, I made my first real Gainesville friends at the paper. We bonded through the shared experiences of covering events that ran far too long, finally getting an elusive source to talk to us and kvetching about the articles that didn't work out. Covering stories together turned into getting lunch, going to markets and calling each other for advice.
Life continued to offer challenges, and at times I could do little but sit in the dirt and curse the day of my birth. At some points, I even made plans to follow in my mother’s footsteps. But, every time, I’d have a thought that would stop me — “what would that do to my friends? What if they need me someday, and I’m not there?”
I think there’s an important part about friendship and community our narratives often miss. So many stories center around the idea of what people “do for us.” But there is another side to that equation — what we do for and owe to those around us.
The relationships I built here, and this place itself, gave me a purpose of responsibility. If I wasn’t here, I knew a friend would need me some day, and they would have to endure the yearning heartache that comes with knowing you will never hear someone’s voice again. And that, above all else, I had to prevent.
That is what we, as a society, need to remember about community — that, as much as we get from others, we owe them twice as much. Purpose isn’t about how much enjoyment we get, though certainly it’s good to enjoy yourself when you can. It’s about how you relate to the people around you.
To anyone reading this, I hope you will take a moment today to think, “What can I do for someone else this week?” Give a sandwich to someone homeless, hold the door for your classmates, help a friend build their furniture. Do it because the world is already cruel enough, so we need to look after each other.
In closing, I would like to thank the people who have most defined my time here. Though many people have meant a lot to me over the past few years, I owe my biggest debt of gratitude to Grace McClung, Rylan DiGiacomo-Rapp, Vivienne Serret, Natalie Kaufman, Vera Lucía Pappaterra Genao and Michael Angee. Thank you for every time you picked up my calls, and thank you for every time you honored me with yours.
I’d also like to thank Zoey Thomas, Megan Howard and Sara-James Ranta for putting their trust in me to run the El Caimán desk this semester.
Outside of The Alligator, I also offer my gratitude to Robin Joiner and to the professors who have most defined my time in Gainesville — Drs. Paige Glotzer, Eric Kligerman and Anastasia Ulanowicz.
May we all remember, how we treat each other is what defines our lives. So, to hell with Thomas Hobbes. “Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit.”
Avery Parker was the Spring 2026 El Caimán Editor.
Avery Parker is an English and History senior and the Spring 2026 El Caimán editor for The Alligator. He previously worked as The Alligator's University desk editor, as well as a reporter for the University and Enterprise desks. He doesn't know the meaning of the word "freetime," but he can usually be found deep in an archive reading 19th century documents or tending to his four cats.
