Crossing Day & Beyond

I didn't understand what a crossing day was until my son called me, voice shaking, and said "Mom, I made it." I was on the phone crying in a parking lot. I didn't even know what he had made it into yet — I just knew from his voice that something enormous had happened. When I got there and saw him in those Black and Gold colors… I understood everything.

People asked me why I was crying at his Omega intake ceremony. I told them: I've been watching this boy work for this since he was 17. He used to draw the Omega symbol in his notebooks in high school. Some things are just meant to be — and watching it happen is everything.

My daughter called me from her dorm at 2am on the night of her AKA crossing. She just kept saying "Mom, I'm a soror now." We stayed on the phone for two hours. That Pink and Green means something different to me now — it's her story, and I carried her to it.

My son pledged Kappa while I was going through some of the hardest months of my life. Watching him come out the other side — confident, disciplined, surrounded by brothers — it gave me strength too. Those Crimson and Cream colors hang in my house now. I earned them too.