As a new academic year begins, parents will drop their children off at school and pick them up at the end of the day. Others will drop them off at college and pick them up at the end of the semester. Regardless, our goodbyes will be filled with hugs and kisses, worries and fears, hopes that new lessons will be learned and promises that old lessons will not be forgotten. Orangeandblack25 writes about going to college and lets his father know exactly that.
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By orangeandblack25
For 13 years, my dad has driven me to the front of school, whether it was at St. Anne's Catholic School in San Francisco or at Lowell High School. For 13 years, he's knocked on my door to wake me up. For 13 years, he's wished me good luck before any test or reminded me to stay focused in class after finals were over. For 13 years, he's reminded me about bringing my lunch or making sure that I had money for lunch later on in high school. For 13 years, he's asked me about classes, journalism or teachers on our short ten-minute drive to school.
This fall, in about a month and a half, I'll say goodbye to him, not in a car outside the front doors of my school, but rather, at home. He won't be coming with me up to Davis to help me move in, citing travel as being for the young. It will be very weird on that first day of class, biking to the building, without a voice saying, "Good luck, you've got money, right?"
But he will be with me. Life will be different, no doubt, but in many ways, it will be the same. More than anything, I'll miss simply talking to him for ten minutes in the car each morning. I know I'll call home every other day for about two weeks than once a week after that, but it obviously, will never be the same as the short car ride to school. He kept me on earth, kept me on my goals and kept me thinking. He always knew exactly what to say to me every morning, whether it was to expand on a lesson I had learned in class with a perspective unique to him, or whether it was asking what I was going to eat that day, making sure I wasn't wasting money on bad food.
All that he has done in the past 13 years has simply instilled in me the knowledge of all the necessary details to live my life on my own. Leaving my dorm room, I'll hear my dad, "Do you have your keys?" Walking into class, "Listen to your professor."
So, thanks Dad. Even though you won't be coming up with me to Davis, you've made sure to stay with me all my life. Just a simple talk made it happen, and that, I think will be what I miss most. All those lessons that sometimes take decades for young people to learn, you some how accomplished in 13 years in ten minutes a day. I'll miss you.
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