Sorority Parents Blog

college life, graduation, Greek life, mother's perspective, Parent's Perspective, sorority life

“Don’t cry because it’s over.  Smile because it happened.”

My fellow NPC blogger, Mary Beth Rice, cited Seuss’s passage in one of her earlier essays and I can’t thank her enough.  The words were my mantra throughout the graduation festivities.

So, I am trying to be a Pollyanna Parent.  I am trying to be glad that it happened – the education and the sorority experience.  I am trying to smile.  But darn it, I am jealous of the parents who have daughters on the verge on this wonderful, once-in-a-lifetime, exhilarating, four-year experience.

I would trade places with them in a moment to relive the little individual events that my daughter shared with me:   Bid Day – posters and poems from “big sisters” –  initiation –  conventions  -  recruitment preparation –  father/daughter events – sorority-motif gift buying -  scholarship dinners – the million printed T-shirts.

I would trade places with them in a moment to appreciate the onset of “bigger picture” happenings:  learning to communicate with my daughter in a new way (Mary Beth wrote about texting, for my daughter and me it was Instant Messaging) -  the making of life-long friendships -  watching my daughter and her sorority sisters learning to take larger and larger responsibilities in the chapter and on campus.  Just thinking about all of this makes me tearful as I swell with pride – I’d better review the Seuss words again.

OK, as I bid sororityparents.com and my daughter’s undergraduate college experience a fond farewell, I am going to smile because it happened.  Also, if I want to relive this experience, I think my daughter might have some photos I can look at.  (Did I ever mention the copious amount of photos these girls take?  Oh my gosh.)