1999. A new year calling for new resolutions. This year I had to think long and hard about my New Year’s resolution. At first, I thought I would wish for a year that was better than the last.

But then I thought, how could a year without my dad be better than a year with him?

I knew whatever resolution I decided upon would have to contain the realization that life must go on.

After my father died Dec. 1, I realized a lot of things, including that life does indeed go on.

I realized I wasn’t the only one who has had a loved one lose a battle with cancer.

I also realized I wasn’t the only college student who has lost a parent, either before or during the college years.

Until you lose a parent, you never think of people who die in car accidents, plane crashes or from cancer as parents.

You say, “Something like that could never happen to my parent.”

Thousands of people die every day from cancer. Just look on the obituary page of a newspaper on any day, and you’ll realize why cancer is one of the leading causes of death.

But not until someone close to you is diagnosed with cancer do you realize how many people are affected.

In conversations with professors and people I worked with daily, it was revealed to me that almost everyone knows of someone who is battling or who has died from cancer.

Sometimes it was his or her father, mother, close friend of the family or the neighbor who lived down the street.

There was always someone.

The day my father died I realized no parent, old or young, is immune from death.

And the next day when I received a call from the Chicago Tribune, I realized life goes on whether you’re ready for it to or not.

Two days after my dad’s funeral I was heading to Chicago for an interview.

As I looked out the plane window down at the snow-blanketed, small squares on the ground, I should have been excited.

I knew when I returned to school everyone would expect me to be oozing with joy and excitement after hearing I got an internship at one of the nation’s top newspapers.

And I was happy. I just couldn’t express my happiness and excitement.

This would be the first thing in a long list of joys and heartaches that I wouldn’t be able to share with my dad.

He wouldn’t be there to beam his gapped-tooth smile when I received my college degree.

He wouldn’t be there to walk me down the aisle and give my hand away on my wedding day.

He wouldn’t be there to look into the eyes of my firstborn.

He wasn’t here, and he wouldn’t be there.

One of the things that kept a smile on my face the day my father died — and continues to keep a smile on my face — is knowing that he will always be with me and that I am not alone.

There are dozens of other college students at Iowa State who have lost their parents.

Losing their parents at a time when they’re like little birds who still have one foot in the nest — not quite ready to brave the world alone.

However, most survive with stronger wings than before.

There also are a lot of college students who only mention their parents when complaining about how they don’t give them enough money or how they don’t understand them.

Don’t take things for granted because who knows, the next person who dies in a car accident could be your mom or dad.

Then the little things, like a phone conversation, will be missed.

I love talking to my mom, but this summer when I call home from Chicago, I’m going to miss my dad’s two-minute phone conversations that used to make me feel like a NASCAR driver making a pit stop.

Each time it was the same thing.

“Are you being good? Is everything OK? Are you sure everything’s OK? Are you being careful? You need any money? OK. You be careful. I love you.”

“I love you too, Dad.”

---

Tara Deering is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Des Moines. She is editor in chief of the Daily.