Everywhere I go, people are too busy. All over campus, there are papers to write, midterms to study for, practices to make, and abolutely no time to do anything else — least of all to call the parents. Calling home is always something easily left until tomorrow.

When tomorrow comes, so have a million other things with pressing deadlines, so our parents are put off for another time. We manage to complain about our work and our lives to nearly everyone around us, and never get around to calling the people who would actually love to hear about it.

I suffered from this myself at the beginning of this year. I was home for only a week before I was to move back to school, and had to cram errands at the last moment to get ready, I ran around my Kentucky hometown doing so many things I thought were so important, I barely had time to have lunch with my dad the day before I left.

I showed up late at the restaurant where I was meeting him, joked with him for a few minutes and wolfed down my plate, eager to get to my other errands. In the parking lot, I shook his hand, thanked him for taking me out to eat, and ran off on another important venture, promising to call once I got settled in at school.

Two weeks later, I saw my dad in a hospital bed, and he was dying.

My brother called just before the Michigan weekend and told me to come home to Louisville. A rare and violent virus had attacked my father's liver and was systematically destroying his organs. I had been joking with my dad about some stupid Monty Python skit the week before, and now he had less than 24 hours to live. As I drove south on 31, I fought tears, listened to the loudest music I had, and pressed harder and harder on the gas.

While I passed Kokomo, still three hours from home, his blood pressure dropped 50 points, and he nearly died. As I passed Indianapolis, my stepmother was at his bedside, urging him to hang on long enough for me to say goodbye. Eventually I arrived at the hospital, but he was semi-conscious and agonizing over every breath. Only my faith tells me he knew his entire family was at his side when he finally gave in to the pain.

Now I am back in South Bend, and my dad is buried beneath the Kentucky Bluegrass he grew up on. Now there is a stone above him that tells the world what a fantastic father he really was. Now there is no amount of class work or personal trouble that will keep me from talking to my mother or my brothers when I should. Our conversations have never been more frequent, more enjoyable or more needed.

As you agonize in the library or at the computer lab, think of the last conversation you had with your parents. Now, imagine it was actually the last.

Yes, your Core paper is important. Yes, that Biology midterm is going to ruin your grade if you bomb it. Yes, football weekends are full of the things that make going to Notre Dame so special, but don't you think your parents want to hear about all of it?

• Father knows best