This past weekend, Mary Kay and I moved Jillian into her college dorm. Jillian, our youngest of four children, chose to attend Cedarville University. Since this is our fourth time through this process, I thought I knew what to expect from the weekend. I’m pleased to report that I was pleasantly surprised by how terrific Cedarville handled the orientation of new students; I’m also surprised by how difficult it was for us to say goodbye to our last child. I’d like to explore both of these topics in this post.
Like I mentioned, we’ve been through the college orientation weekend before – twice with Christian colleges similar in size to Cedarville. Never have we experienced the kind of purposeful, enthusiastic welcome from a Christian community the way we felt it this weekend. At every level with every person we met the message was the same: “We’re glad you’re here.” No that’s not quite enough. It was more like, “We’re tremendously excited, enthused, thrilled that you are among us!” I know that sounds exaggerated. Let me try to explain.
When we pulled into the parking lot after the long night of packing and the long drive to Cedarville, I was anxious about finding a place to park and unpacking the van. You know what I mean, right? Everyone else is trying to do the same thing you are. Everyone is fighting for the parking space. You just know you’re going to have to park a mile away and as the only Dad in the family, you’re going to have to personally hike the mile playing the beast of burden loaded down with all the daughter’s belongings.
But at Cedarville we were greeted, no… we were cheered by a group of girls lined up at the parking lot. For them it was a party and we were the invited guests! Even though the lot was full, they directed us to a place close by (Sure, the lot can hold one more van!). I hardly had the van turned off before we were surrounded by a group of young men waiting for us to open the doors. I am not kidding you when I tell you we made ONE TRIP to Jillian’s dorm room. They emptied the van for us! Later I noticed that the entire campus was organized this way, students at every corner, in every lot, waiting to serve, to direct, to help, to assist in any way possible – always with a smile. It was downright festive, with music, balloons, and banners.
Cedarville also had thought through the process of getting Jillian checked into everything. There was so much to do and honestly I don’t think we would have remembered everything. Fortunately, Cedarville had put together a checklist they gave us when we arrived. Even here, at the registration process, where it could have consisted of long lines and anxious feelings, they gave the impression of a party with us as the guests. I don’t ever remember actually being in a line. It was more like groups of people moving through a process, from table to table with more than enough people available to help – again always with the smile, the encouragement, and the servant’s heart.
They also provided numerous seminars for parents and students to attend, repeating them often over the two-day period. These seminar sessions appeared to all be optional, but well presented by leaders and educators who had done this many times before. Yet not one appeared bored or doing the job out of duty. We learned about the student services, about the medical support team; there was even one session designed to help us to “parent from afar.” On the second day, Saturday, we all gathered in the chapel – the freshman class (800 students?) along with their parents. A drama was presented. It was titled, “Calling home.” In a very clever way, Cedarville was preparing both students and parents to handle the difficult emotional journey that we would be experiencing over the coming weeks. It was just another way of saying, “We’ve thought really hard about this weekend and about the best way of preparing you for the days to come.”
Then the president of the university, Dr. Bill Brown, gave a talk to the students and their family. He also has a student at Cedarville and somehow had the ability to talk to us as one parent to another. He invited us to plug into the chapel services (they have a podcast?) so that we could hear what our children were hearing and in that way be connected to them. At the end he invited all the students to sit in the middle of the auditorium and asked us parents to circle around them to pray a prayer of dedication over them. At first I thought we were going to stand and parents pray right over our own child. But the way Dr. Brown chose to do it was much better. I could see Jillian sitting with her classmates and see all the other parents in the circle around, just like we were. There was a sense of separation, but also a sense of togetherness – we weren’t alone in our mixed up feelings of happiness and sorrow fused together so profoundly that we weren’t sure whether to laugh or to cry. Many other moms and dads were experiencing the same emotions we were.
Within an hour we were in the parking lot saying our goodbyes. Like I said, we’ve been here before. We’ve sent three other children to their new lives. I thought we would be ready for this goodbye. But I don’t think we were really ready. The truth is this wasn’t the same as before. In the past, even though we left a child at college, we still came home to an active house filled with other children who needed our attention and affection. This was our last child, our youngest, our baby. I’ve never been so happy, so proud, yet so intensely sad all at the same time.
The drive home was quiet, neither Mary nor I wanting to talk much. The house was quiet. Jillian’s room was made up. This morning I opened the door to her room – and it was exactly the same. My little girl has moved out and moved on. I can’t think of a better place for her to be than at Cedarville. I’m happy for her, sad for me. I know the Lord will do a great work in her life and will patch up my own hurt as well. But honestly, I’m not quite ready to be patched. I think I need to feel this happy/sad for awhile before I move on. Thank you, Cedarville, for being so prepared and so sensitive to these feelings. If you do everything else as well as you did things this weekend, I know my little girl will be in good hands.
