Madison Riehle
Editor-in-Chief
We hadn’t even started to say goodbye and I was already in tears. “It’s not like I’m dying,” my brother Danny said. “I’m always a phone call away.” We were standing at our rental car at the base of Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Ind. After three days of orientation and preparing to say goodbye, the moment I braced myself for was here.
Notre Dame has always been a huge part of Danny’s and my childhood, since our dad and his two brothers are alumni. We have made many treks to South Bend for football games, so when Danny got his acceptance letter, I was beyond excited.
Danny is — and always has been — an amazing student.
He pushed himself everyday, and it paid off —he got into his number one school.
Seeing him so overjoyed when he got his letter made me want to feel that excitement, too. I know how hard Danny worked to get where he is now, and I know that if I work as hard as he did, I could also experience that feeling.
Danny is my only sibling, which leaves me now as an only child. Sometimes this is beneficial — I have my own bathroom now — and there isn’t much commotion at night. But most of the time, I find the unlit bedroom across the hall to be disheartening.
Like most siblings, Danny and I did not always get along; we would pick fights and meddle with one another.
We began to spend more time together while our last year together was slowly winding down. We went on road trips to see our cousins, talked late at night and had inside jokes from our parents.
I wish that I had been able to appreciate 15 more years of a friendship with Danny. I was so caught up in making him miserable, I didn’t realize that he was one of the best friends I could ever ask for. For all that time I had a mentor, a tutor and most of all, someone I now share everything with, although it is much harder now.
Before we left for South Bend, Danny and I went on a “sightseeing crawl” starting at Crissy Field and ending at the Marin Headlands. He wanted to see the sights that he would miss for nine months.
“You don’t really appreciate all of it until its time to leave,” Danny said, referring to the view at the lookout point above the Golden Gate Bridge.
I think, and hope, he meant it about me, too.
