Our youngest daughter, Carley, joined her middle sister, Valerie, at Oklahoma Christian University this weekend and we’re just hoping that campus is big enough for the both of them.

Moving a girl into a freshman dorm today is a whole lot different from when I moved into those OC dorms as a college freshman back in 1985. I had all my worldly possessions in the back seat of my ’74 Monte Carlo: a suitcase full of jeans and T-shirts, two pair of shoes, an electric typewriter, and a boom box. It seems I remember it taking about an hour to get unpacked and organized. With Carley, it was an almost ten hour ordeal that included unloading multiple storage totes, hanging lights, plugging in refrigerators, water dispensers, and coffee makers, raising beds to an ideal height, and setting up complicated shelving systems.

To their credit, she and her roommate, Hayleigh, did transform a drab cinder-block cube into a somewhat livable abode.

It was good to see some great old friends from our Legacy days moving in their kids, too: David and Shanna with their son Dawson, Ron and Stephanie with their daughter Brighton, and David and Krista with their daughter Maddie.

Emotionally, moving our youngest child into college was a little more difficult than I had imagined. Maybe I hadn’t thought about it much or hadn’t thought about it in the right ways. But it all kind of snuck up on me in the past week. Waving goodbye to Carley from the gas station parking lot — she heading east back to campus in her little Jeep and us heading west to Amarillo — was strange. If you’ve done it, you know. A weird mix of pride and concern, excitement and hesitation. It’s really weird not having another one coming up behind Carley. She’s our last one. This is it.

Carley and Valerie, we love you both. Give each other plenty of space, but be sure to take care of each other, too. May God bless you both with good grades, great friends and a wonderful semester.

Peace,

Dad