"A brother does not have to necessarily say anything to you-he can sit in a room and be together with you and just be completely comfortable with you." - AnonymousA little over a year ago (on January 12th to be exact), I entered into the apartment of a friend of mine & was introduced to 3 new incoming students from Nepal (Dilesh, Narayan & Ishwor). Though I felt kind of like a mother hen immediately with a need to watch over them & make sure they'd get adjusted, I never would have guessed the effect they would have on me. As I sat there trying to get them to open up to me, I would never have dreamt that I would or could love them so deeply. My bond with them grew quite strong over just a few short months shared together. My heart ached badly when they decided to leave Lindenwood & transfer elsewhere for schooling. Saying goodbye last May was rather difficult as truly, it was as though I was sending off family members-brothers. Every student I meet is special, no doubt about that. However, as with any relationship, there are those that we are naturally closer to. This is true of the many Nepali students that arrived here for the Spring Semester of 2010. Daily, these students still come to mind. Many months later, I still miss them. For the majority of them, I quickly became a big sister. Nearly every day, at least one of them would call me to inquire into whether or not I'd be coming to campus. I may have just been there the day prior but they would want me to come again. Most of the time, I would gladly oblige. We would typically just sit talking with one another. Sometimes, we would watch Hindi music videos. The main thing was just being together. Being far away from their own families, they loved getting to see Haley & me frequently. As I've already mentioned, these students have all gone from here. 2 of the 3 that I first met, moved to Fairfax, VA. As I prepared to vacation in West Virginia, I checked on the distance between where I would be & where those 2 lived. I found they were roughly about 5 hours away. When I first began planning, we were going to meet halfway to spend a day together. However, I soon realized something. In the dead of winter, there was not going to be any sufficient place to meet halfway to spend time together. Most likely, the only place we could meet would be at a restaurant & it was highly unlikely that they would allow us to sit there for more than a couple of hours. Really, to only meet for a couple hours would not be worth the 2.5 hour drive for anyone-especially if one had to battle through snow for the meeting. Narayan rushed to say that he & Dilesh would drive the 5 hours to come visit me in West Virginia. They were determined that we would be meeting. When I landed in West Virginia, the ground was covered in snow. I feared that the guys might have difficulties making it to me. I was ecstatic when my phone rang & it was the two of them calling to say they were just a couple of minutes away from my friend's house. At last, I saw them coming up the road. Already, tears were beginning to well up. I laughed as Narayan attempted to make it up the snow-packed drive-way & was unable to do so. His tires were spinning like crazy. Finally he just backed out & parked on the street. I got huge hugs from both of them & tried oh so hard not to bawl like a baby. The date was January 17th & there I was, reunited with 2 that I love a lot. Narayan had asked me to try to find something we could do...a park to go to, something, anything. My friends that I was staying with mentioned the New River Gorge Bridge to me. Though we got lost on our way there, we did find the place. Before we had even got out of the car, my prediction came true when I heard one of them say, "It's so cold outside." I had told my friends, PJ & Kasey, that the boys would be complaining about how cold it was outside & they'd not want to be out there for long. Too funny - that we weren't even out walking around yet & I had foreseen what would occur! Unfortunately, due to lots of snowfall there in West Virginia prior to my arrival, the park was closed & we were not able to walk to the base of the bridge to look upwards for pics or anything.
