For two years, I’ve always felt like I only had half of a Dads Weekend. My dad has spent Dads Weekend with me for two years, but he’s experienced it for a total of four years because my older brother went here. My Dads Weekend overlapped with my brother’s until he graduated this past May. Because of this, I have not had the same experience as most of the other girls in my sorority.

Since I had to share my dad with my brother, my dad was forced to split his time between my brother’s friends and my friends. It really bothered me my freshman year that I couldn’t have him all to myself. Especially on my first Dads Weekend, I wanted my dad to get to know my friends and vice versa, and I felt that he didn’t get as much of a chance to do that.

I remember getting really upset while talking to my mom on the phone because I was so frustrated that my brother wouldn’t go to anything with my friends, yet I was expected to go to everything with his friends.

Looking back on it, it was really unfair to my dad for me to complain to my mom about the tough situation he was in. I made sure to learn my lesson for the following year.

My sophomore year I was a lot more understanding, especially because that meant my brother was a senior and it was his last year celebrating Dads Weekend. Having already experienced Dads Weekend, I knew I wasn’t missing that much and I was more reasonable about going with the flow.

I noticed that I felt a lot more comfortable at my brother’s festivities because I had become much more familiar with his friends and their dads from the previous year. I had a greater appreciation for what was right in front of me, which was a group of guys who went through four years of college together.

Looking back on it, I realize that this year’s Dads Weekend will be more different than most. My dad and I still start to realize that our time together is winding down and special occasions like this will be over soon.

As I sit here now in my junior year, I feel more nostalgic than ever. After this weekend, I will only have one Dads Weekend left, along with the other annual celebrations that I will only have one more of.

My dad is a University alumnus, and he cherishes Dads Weekend more than most because he gets to relive his college days, recall a million memories and teach us all about what has changed since his time on campus.

After this year, he will only have one more year to do that because after that, there won’t be any excuse for him to come here. So this year, I will let him go on and on about what The Red Lion used to be called, let him take a tour of his fraternity’s chapter house and let him do all of the things that I would have rolled my eyes at in the past.

I’ll do all of this because as my time here is dwindling down, so is his. Soon we will only be invited back on Homecoming Weekend, and we will all just be visitors with the rest of the alumni.

Kyra is a junior in Media.

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