Malcolm Smith's Short Story

For Malcolm Smith, home is Nichole and Bradleigh

Two years ago, Dean Malcolm Smith became the dean of students at Salve Regina University and about seven months ago, the acting director or residence life.

Smith goes to Miley dinning hall every morning and lunch in order to make sure his students are doing well. Smith asks his students, “how are you today?” and students reply back with an enormous smile. Students always tell Smith, “ Oh, I’ve been thinking about coming to see you”, but since he is in the dinning hall, it’s not necessary for students to come find him. “This is my way of being accessible to them without them necessarily having to come to my office”, he says, smiling. Smith is a social butterfly and loves to talk with students.

Smith’s life changed forever at Ohio State University when he when to do his PhD Degree because that was where he met his wife, Nichole. Smith said, “That’s where I met my wife and clearly without that, I would be a different person. I wouldn’t have my daughter and I wouldn’t have the life that I have now.” Eight years ago, on September 15, 2007 Smith and Nichole had their wedding at the Ohio State House, he says cheerfully, “ It was a beautiful wedding, and I can say that objectively because I didn’t plan it”. As he continues to think about it, he explains that it was a gorgeous building, emphasizing on gorgeous, he says, “ We were the first Black couple to ever get married in the Ohio State House.” There was a four-piece string cortex that played the wedding march, “ that was beautiful” and a saxophonist that moved the people from the wedding to the cocktail hour. He says, “we got married in this rotunda so it was round, we were inside and the seats were all around us, except we were right behind the preacher.” He continues, “inside was my my wife, Nichole, instead of coming from behind me she came down the stairs from the governor’s office. So I got to watch her enter

He says, “If you take her to bed, you wake up with her the next morning, like I said, since the day she was born.” He adds, “every night that it’s my turn to go to bed with her, we get her ready and she gives her mom hugs and kisses and we go upstairs.” Bradleigh is very ritualistic like her father is and he finds it interesting that she likes the patters of things. Smith says, “We’ll get halfway through the steps and she’ll look at me and say, I want to see pictures of Bradleigh, referring to herself in third person so we’ll go through Instagram and we’ll sit in her rocking chair and we’ll look at pictures of her and as we go through the pictures, she’ll tell me what she was doing in each of those pictures.” He smiles and says, “Her memory is remarkable to me.” Smith continues, “ After that, I’ll close my phone and take off the screen and she immediately flips around, puts her head on my shoulder tucks her arms under me and I sing to her. I’m not really good at knowing the lyrics of songs so I just make my own lyrics to different songs and some of which have stuck with us so sometimes she’ll sing along with me.” Smith continues, “I always make them about her, about us, about our family. We usually sing one song and however many verses we get through that night.” As soon as he finishes the song, he tells her, “I love you” and she sits up and says, “I want hugs and