Meera’s 2nd Year at LU

Meera at the Homecoming Pep Rally ~ photo courtesy of Christa Neu, Lehigh photographer

When we were deciding on, and planning, the move to campus, it was Meera we were worried about. She was only three years old the year we made the decision to do it, and she was too young to grasp what it all meant. All we knew was that she had always liked to stick close to home, and that she loved our house and the world she inhabited there. We had no concerns about Kyle and Owen transitioning to a life on campus — they had always been uber-extroverts and we just knew they would embrace it. But Meera, she seemed so little and so sweet and so precious, and we didn’t know how she would handle a life that would include being inundated with people much of the time.

It was Meera who surprised us most through the move and the transition. She handled it with grace and ease. She was calm, cool, and collected, and seemed undaunted by any of it. Over the course of last year we were amazed to see our four-year-old bloom into a little being who genuinely enjoyed a very interactive social life on campus. Meera built real relationships during our first year and paved her own way in a family of very big and strong personalities. She forged a path for herself in connecting with people, and she stuck to it. We discovered that Meera was quite an extrovert in her own right.

This year everything that we saw in Meera last year is tenfold. She is just as outgoing and gregarious as her brothers are, if not — at times — even more so. And she has a special knack for building strong bonds with female students.

Meera’s relationships are very different than the rest of ours. And in many ways, they are more substantial. I am watching this year, as Meera, at age five, continues to develop her own style of being in a community. She is playful and fun, but she can also hold a serious conversation and ask important questions (even while in the midst of getting her hair braided or her nails painted — favorite activities of Meera and her “big girl” college friends). She is well known for giving generously of her drawings, paintings, and Rainbow Loom bracelets. We see the students, who are the recipients of these gifts, display them proudly (putting her her drawings on their walls; wearing her bracelets proudly). These are real, reciprocal, relationships. They are meaningful.

Meera is thriving and fully blossoming as a very outgoing girl who is surrounded by many, many students who adore her and who also have her back. Meera is really coming into her own this year, fully embracing her highly unusual five-year-old life on campus. It is a joy to see.