Remembering Junior Parent's Weekend
Gary Caruso
Capitol Comments
Junior Parent's Weekend is an extremely worthwhile way for Notre Dame students to share a moment with their parents and University officials. The events allow the University to promote itself, bring great pride to parents whose children are living the Notre Dame "experience" and give students the opportunity to showcase their collegiate lives to family and friends.
I recently came upon a photograph of my family speaking to then University President Father Theodore Hesburgh during my Junior Parent's Weekend more than two decades ago. The photograph, however, jogged my memory in quite a different way than expected.
Since I served as the chairman of the weekend's events, I should have been able to reminisce about my family sitting with University officials at the head table, about the countless hours of hard work our committee performed to secure hotel reservations and organize a concert, about the beautifully celebrated mass or about the goof at the Sunday morning breakfast where those who should have been sitting at the head table, sat in the audience.
Instead, I thought about another weekend in my life when I cleared out an office.
I thought of my lonely, painful task last Memorial Day weekend when I packed my father's memorabilia following his unexpected passing. It was a numbing process that I alone performed. It was a weekend that bumped its way above Junior Parent's Weekend in my mind.
For two days during last Memorial Day weekend I sorted and packed items representing decades worth of events and 11 years of my father's tenure as mayor of our city. I had in my hands the public life of my father which was ending so symbolically in tens of boxes.
Arranged in the mayor's office among the dozens of autographed photos of entertainment stars and politicians that included Presidents Reagan, Bush and Clinton, were prominently displayed photographs of me — one talking to President Clinton and the other of me sitting at my desk. Their positioning in the office were symbols of his love for me, which made them the hardest items for me to pack.
Throughout it all, the most personal item I handled was my father's handwritten calendar showing his hospital and surgical appointments the week before, along with future events he expected to attend in June and July.
How I wished that I had just one more hour from that calendar, any hour, to speak with him. How I wish now that I had spent more personal time with him during my Junior Parent's Weekend rather than serving as the chair of the events.
Today I think of how my father lost both of his parents before he reached the age of 30. How unfair it seems since I enjoyed his company for almost 50 years. I also think of my dentist, my classmate since first grade, who called himself "an orphan" when both of his parents passed away a dozen years ago. At the time, those words seemed so weak to me — they had little meaning since my parents were still with me.
It is truly tragic that most of us take family and friends for granted until one of them passes away. We always ask why it happened and how unfair it seems. But they serve as harsh reminders for us to make more of our relationships now, to pay closer attention to the wonders that life provides.
Hopefully, this writer can serve as a gentler version for juniors and their families who are celebrating this weekend.
For those who participate in the events this weekend, it will be one of excitement for some, of interest to most and remembered to some extent by all. The outcome and significance will be what its participants make of their opportunities.
It can be the weekend to savor and remember for a lifetime even when another weekend of cleaning out an office creeps out of a calendar years from now.
Gary J. Caruso, Notre Dame '73, served in President Clinton's administration as a Congressional and public affairs director. His column appears every other Friday, and his Internet address is Hottline@aol.com.
The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
All Viewpoint Stories for Friday, February 16, 2001
