I sat today in my youngest daughter’s BYU married student ward beside her, her husband, and their newborn daughter. The opening hymn was “Oh, How Lovely Was the Morning.” I couldn’t sing through my tears as I realized I was saying good-bye to BYU after my relationship had started with it so many years ago in 1972.

The first time I heard the message of the First Vision I was trying so unsuccessfully to sing, I knew it was true and told my mother, “If this is true, it’s the greatest message the world has ever heard.” It was true, and I was baptized on my 18th birthday two months later in1971.

A year later, I left my home in Virginia to head to BYU with a new husband, my neighbor who had just returned from his mission-that’s another whole story. New to the church and poor as church mice, on the one hand I was thrilled to be at BYU, although I didn’t realize what a treasure it was; on the other hand, I was homesick for Virginia and soon consumed with morning sickness.

Memories of that time at BYU include eating Lifesavers with my head on the desk during an 8 a.m. class to squelch my nausea, freezing through the Utah winter, and being so very poor. I would buy a quarter pound of stew meat at Ream’s and make a big pot of mostly carrot and potato stew to eat for at least three days.

It was also the year Ranch dressing became mainstream, and I discovered it at a BYU ward dinner! “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree” by Tony Orlando and Dawn was popular, as well as “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” by Roberta Flack. I can still feel BYU when I hear those songs.

And did I say we were poor? Coming home one day from class to Wymount Terrace, I stood in front of an apartment from which the fragrance of fried chicken wafted and cried, so hungry for my mother’s fried chicken and too broke to buy any. When I went home for Christmas, my one pair of shoes I had worn to trek through the snow to class were split down the side, so Daddy took me to buy a new pair.

Leaving BYU

We left after one year to return to Virginia, still broke, pregnant and with no insurance. The plan was to work a year and then come back. Our handicapped daughter was born soon after, and we never returned. I have often wondered if my now ex-husband would still be in the Church, and we would still be married, if he had had another two or three years of the righteous spirit of BYU. I have always felt like my BYU experience was incomplete and hoped that in some parallel universe-just kidding-I am a BYU English professor.

I didn’t return for another 13 years until we came back for a wedding with our fifth child who was two. On a video, my ex-husband is saying, “Susan loves these mountains and doesn’t want to leave them.”

I thought I would never get back to BYU again. Oh, how wrong I was!

Back Again

Five years later in 1992, I was bringing my daughter out to see if she really wanted to go to BYU so far away, even though it had been her goal for years. She did, and that started the long line of sending six children to BYU, the last one, the new mother, graduating in December.

Although I didn’t come out while my first daughter was at BYU-I was a struggling single mom by that time-her graduation in 1998 initiated my treks across country to bring missionary sons, attend graduations and weddings and see new grandchildren.

During that time, I have thanked my Heavenly Father many times for the goodness BYU has brought into my children’s lives. I have marveled during graduations as students who have served missions are asked to stand up and most of the crowd arises. The same with the number of students who are bilingual, who are married, who are parents. I have cried as the students are asked to turn around and extend, through their applause, their gratitude to their parents.

What a heart-wrenching sacrifice it is to send a child so far away to go to college, trusting their lives, their education and their testimonies to people you don’t even know. In the depths of your heart, you know they probably won’t ever live close to you again.

You feel like Hannah, promising to give your child to the Lord and then doing it-giving your best and trusting it will be taken care of.

I sent my kids out with the rule that they couldn’t date anyone west of the Mississippi or north of the Mason-Dixon Line. It didn’t work. Three sons lost their hearts to wonderful Utah girls, so one grandmother will probably always be missing her child and grandchildren.

My Own Experience

In my many trips to BYU-usually three times a year-I have carved out my own BYU experience. I bring back chocolate-covered cinnamon bears and Grandma Sycamore’s white bread in suitcases I filled with biscuits on the trip out. (If you’re Southern, you’ll understand.)

I relish my time in the LDS bookstores and try to hit the sales on BYU apparel at the BYU bookstore. I’ve enjoyed ComedySportz, taken pictures on Squaw Peak, gone to class with my youngest daughter, eaten my favorite rocky road ice cream at the Cougareat, enjoyed burritos at Caf Rio, marveled at the new buildings on campus over the years and cried over some of the really pitiful apartments my BYU students have lived it.

The highlights have been the two BYU football games I have gotten to go to with my oldest son. When I can’t be there in person, I buy the Sports Pack on Direct TV so I won’t miss a game, always searching, but never, in any of the years, spying one of my children in the stands.

I’ve attended church at singles wards and married wards with my kids, always bowing my head in gratitude for the BYU students, who study, serve and struggle with such faith. What a blessing to the world it must be when so many righteous, well-taught young adults leave the campus and join the “real world.”

Two things I haven’t achieved over the years are hiking up to the Y, and that’s looking less and less likely, and learning all the words to the Fight Song, which also is looking less and less likely.

But I felt this morning, sitting in church that I had come full circle. If I had any more children to send to BYU, I surely would. I know I’ll be back to Utah to visit my son and his family, but my BYU experience is over, however much the alumni office wishes to involve me!

It’s been a good 17 years with at least one student at BYU each of those years. I’ll miss it, and oh, how grateful I am to have experienced it.