Children's parents collect a lot of things that show their children's successes — trophies, medals, photographs, scholarship letters, acceptance letters. They keep scrapbooks with grade school diplomas and tickets from honors dinners. They watch clips of winning passes in football games and solos in high school plays.

But when I called home the other night, I realized my parents were collecting something that wasn't quite as normal for most parents. As I was talking to my dad on the phone he reminded me that they were now up to their second or third book full of not only articles I had written over the last four years, but every mention of my name in the paper — that includes the little box in viewpoint that has Today's Staff. That's a lot of cutting out.

Don't think they do this just because my mom is a preschool teacher and wants some practice with her kid-proof scissors. Or that my dad, who works from home, needs a break from the basement. As he often reminds me, he has the dog for company.

But the truth is, they do it because they care enough to weed through all those pages of news about new alcohol policies, unknown speakers and losing teams to find articles that might just have my name under them. That's pretty amazing.

And I'm not even going into journalism. When I leave Saint Mary's I will hang up my journalist's notebook and my mini tape-recorder, I'll leave behind the football media guides and the sports information contact lists, and I will sign my name for the last time under an inside column for The Observer. That will be the end.

But it won't be the end of the kind of care and dedication it takes to weed through all those pages.

I learned one very big, very unexpected lesson this year. The lesson wasn't that people drift out of our lives sometime. That was a lesson I learned, but it wasn't the important one.

The lesson I truly learned was that there really are people in your life you can always count on. I learned that regardless of the entrance of new acquaintances and the exits of very old friends, there are people that will always, always be there. No matter what.

Sometimes those people come into your life very unexpectedly. Sometimes they simply fall into your lap and even though you've only known them for a few months, you know they are those kinds of people. And you're pretty sure that in five years time or 10 years time that will still be the case.

Sometimes they are the people you live with. Sometimes they are the people you work with.

But sometimes, most importantly, they are the people who sit at home when you are nearly 300 miles away, probably with your mind on anything but home, who are always thinking about you.

And cutting out your articles.

• Clippings