Cade-Michael Miller ’26 Shares a Story of Brotherhood at Cum Laude Ceremony

As part of the MICDS Cum Laude Society induction process, each student candidate shared one of their College Common App essays for review by the Cum Laude faculty members. The faculty selected several essays, which were shared at a special breakfast held for the student candidates. The students then selected Cade-Michael Miller ’26 and Nihaal Satwani ’26 to share their essays with the full Upper School student body during the ceremony on Tuesday, April 21, 2026. Please enjoy Cade-Michael’s essay below.

My canvas holds four hundred and thirty-two squares. Together, they reveal the limits (and limitlessness) of my life. The assignment itself was not to replicate Chuck Close’s signature grid but to explore it. Imitating an artist’s style is not about matching. It is about learning how it might inform my own. Close’s technique developed out of necessity. Face blindness meant that not even his own was familiar. By partitioning a face into small squares, he found that he could train himself to recognize the parts. I never forget a face. Yet by dividing my own into hundreds of pieces, I could recognize the parts creating my whole. I deconstructed myself so I could understand what I am made of.

Close focused on faces. His portraits tend to stop short of the subject’s neckline. For my self-portrait, I included my shoulders. A family signature. There is no question that Camden, Case, and I are brothers. There is just a year separating Camden from Case. Only eleven and a half months separate Case from me. We always seem to end up in a row, shoulder-to-shoulder, making even candid photos seem staged.

Camden, Case, me is the order in our earliest photos. Now, it is reversed. After years of jostling—Camden, Case, me or Case, me, Camden, I now tower over them all. Even Dad. But our shoulders share a common width and slope. They allow me to throw my arms wide around my brothers in celebration, like the night Case’s team came back to win a championship and we slung our arms around one another. I could see how happy Case was. More, I could see how happy Camden and I were for him.

We may be “stairstep” siblings, one following immediately after the other in age, but I do not simply follow in their footsteps. I am there, my shoulders broad, capable of carrying what is needed for another. Always. I include my shoulders as a reminder that if someone stumbles ahead of me, I am there to catch them. And I am strong enough to lift them back up whether through actions or words.

Square-by-square I build out my shoulders. No square holds a singular hue. “Purple” is a misnomer, for my polo shirt’s shadows and folds demand a range of colors—from grays to blues to whites. I used them all. My features, too. The dark hues needed for my hair and eyes. The brown tones matching my skin. The black-framed glasses all-but-matching the ones we all wear—Dad, Mom, Camden, Case, and me. Or the full face and firm jaw I share with Dad and my grandfather.

As I filled up each square, I saw far more. The grays of that “purple” shirt mimic those of the Gateway Arch. My own “gateway to the west,” to new opportunities. I saw it every morning and evening as Dad or Mom drove Case, Camden, and me from our home in Illinois to school in Missouri and then back again.

The whites are like the thousands of pages that fill my bookshelves—in chronological order based on when I read them, a timeline of ideas I have explored and weighed before adopting, adapting, or putting aside. Some are recommendations from Dad. Others are those I added as I sought to know more about what I studied. Still others, like Sometimes I Just Stutter, remind me that stuttering is complex. Not a “problem” but a challenge, one that does not stop me from speaking to others or standing up in front of crowds.

There is no frame. At least not yet. Instead, the canvas’ crisp white margins—wide ones—hold their own promise. Four hundred and thirty-two squares once seemed excessive. Now, I see that they are not nearly enough. That border is undefined. Nothing holds it in. There is still room, spaces for me to fill as I grow into an ever-more complete, color-filled, version of myself.