On May 17, 11 years after she first enrolled, Ayshante’ Archelus will graduate from Morgan State University with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. Her journey to that moment has been filled with ups and downs.

She has shared part of that journey in a TikTok video that has made the rounds, but hardly tells the story.

Flashback to a rainy afternoon in December 2022, when Archelus collapsed in a hallway at work. She had just learned that her best friend, Shauntice Paynes, had been in a hit-and-run a few days before.

Paynes’ fiancé told her there was a 2 percent chance she’d survive the surgery.

“I just remember sinking to the floor and crying,” said Archelus. “When he finally called me back, he didn’t say anything. He just screamed—and I knew.”

The grief pulled her under. She dropped out of Morgan for the second time, lost a personal relationship and struggled to function.

“When I wasn’t staring in space, I was crying. When I wasn’t crying, I was drinking.” she said. “I couldn’t see past the grief. It took my life over.”

Archelus met Paynes’ during her sophomore year of high school, shortly after transferring to a new school in New Jersey.

“We were just two peas in a pod,” she said. “People thought we looked alike. We started calling each other ‘twin.’”

Her college journey at Morgan State started in 2014, but the road wasn’t smooth. She switched majors several times, trying to find her path. After taking a break from school once before, she eventually returned—only to be met with tragedy.

In the middle of the semester, her best friend was killed in a hit-and-run accident. Not long after, her relationship ended.

“I was grieving and going through a breakup at the same time,” Archelus, 28,  said. “We lived together, so I had to figure out my next step. It was a lot.”

With support from her grandmother and aunt, she began looking for a new place to live.

Emotionally, however, Archelus was crumbling.

“The grief was just so much for me,” she said. “I knew that if I stayed in school, I wasn’t going to be able to do it. So, I withdrew before it could affect my grades.”

She cycled through jobs, unsure of what came next. Then she got into a car accident. The experience shook her—but also gave her a window.

“I could’ve gone on a trip, bought something nice. But I told myself, ‘It’s time.’ And I went back to school,” she said referencing what she did with the money from the accident.

Archelus re-enrolled quietly. There were no big announcements, just a group chat message with her class schedule to her family, including her grandmother, Rachel Archelus.

“She didn’t even tell us she was going to do it,” Rachel Archelus said. “She just sent a picture of her schedule in the group chat. She took it by force. She didn’t quit. She rested and came back with a mighty force.”

When Ayshante’ Archelus returned, the grief didn’t disappear.

“I had really bad days,” Archelus said. “Still do. But I’ve learned to let myself have them. And on the good days, I function at full capacity.”

Her cousin, Jakera “Era” Fuller, noticed the change.

“This is the strongest grind I’ve ever seen her do,” Fuller said. “She was working, going to school, going to the gym, even taking a weightlifting class. She was unstoppable.”

Sometimes, Archelus dreams of her best friend. Other times, she asks for signs.

Once, on a hard day, she prayed in the car. Minutes later, she looked up at a license plate: 053996 —Paynes’ birthday.

“I said, ‘Alright, big dog. I hear you,’” said Archelus.

Another time, she attended a sip and paint event and was handed a canvas already drawn: a woman with butterflies in her hair. When she finished painting it, the background was pink. The butterflies were purple and blue— a favorite color that she shared with Paynes.

The image mirrored the one in her wallet: a laminated card from her best friend’s obituary.

“I didn’t even realize it until I went to hang it up,” she said. “It looked just like her.”

Archelus found ways to keep going. She started with faith.

“Me and God, we just talk. I don’t do the whole kneel and fold-my-hands thing,” she said. “I just talk to Him like I talk to my friends.”

She built a prayer board inside her closet with labeled sections: self, relationships, growth, and answered prayers. And on a whiteboard in her room, she began writing affirmations.

“I will graduate. I will have this GPA. I will get all A’s,” she said. “I wasn’t just hoping—I was speaking it. I was moving like it was already happening.”

Now, it’s happening.

“It’s still hitting me every day,” said Fuller. “When it happens, I’m going to be screaming. I won’t even do my makeup. The tears will be falling.”

Her family will be there—her grandmother, her aunt, her cousins—all watching a dream fulfilled.

“I already know I’m going to be crying,” her aunt, Rochelle Archelus said. “She followed in my footsteps and came to Morgan. Most people who stop never go back. But she went back and did the ‘darn’ thing.”

Rachel Archelus will be thinking of the same poem she taught to generations of elementary school students: Don’t Quit.

“One line says, ‘Rest if you must, but don’t you quit,’” she said. “That’s what Ayshante did. She rested for bit but she didn’t quit.”

Ayshante’ Archelus plans to pursue her doctorate and open a mental health clinic that centers people of color.

“We need spaces where we feel seen,” she said. “Where people understand where we come from.”

She isn’t trying to rewrite the past. But if she could speak to the girl she was at 19—confused, in love, and about to give it all up—she’d keep it simple.

“Don’t let somebody who won’t be in your life next year distract you from the goals you have,” she said.

As she prepares to graduate, Ayshante’ Archelus is carrying more than just her own hopes across that stage.

“She (Paynes)  used to say, ‘If you left me to go that far, you better graduate,’” Archelus said. “I could hear her in my head. She didn’t get the chance to finish school. So, this degree—it’s ours.”