Graduation is always an emotional time for parents. However, people often forget that it can be even harder for younger siblings, who have to watch their older siblings go off and live a new life at college.

We spend our whole lives with our older siblings; we watch cartoons with them, we travel together, we laugh together, we cry together, and then we say goodbye to them in August for what feels like forever.

Annabelle Balagot (’28) gave us some insight as to how she feels about her older brother, Noah Balagot (’26), graduating. Annabelle said, “It makes me a little sad, y’know, just cause Sam [her older sister] is already in college and he’s the last one and now, like, I’m alone. But it’s exciting and y’know, like we’re all getting older. It makes me a little sad, but it’s alright.” Balagot perfectly expressed the bittersweetness that all younger siblings feel about their older sibling graduating.

Gia Ferguson (’28) had a similar response, sharing that she “feels sad that her sister is graduating, but it’s also bittersweet because I know that she’s gonna do great things and just have a really great time and she’s going on in life.” Gia’s older sister, Siena, is going to Villanova for college. Ferguson shares that she’ll miss the drives she’d go on with her sister, including their morning drives to school, along with hanging out with the teachers they shared.

It’s inevitable that our older siblings will eventually leave us, but the hardest part is accepting that it’s true. The best we can do as younger siblings is wish them all the best and hope that they live their best lives in college. Gia’s advice for her older sister, Siena, was to “be herself and don’t be afraid to meet new people and try new things, because that’s what college is all about.”To all our graduating seniors, we wish you all the best of luck in college — but please don’t forget to call your younger siblings every once in a while.