NBC-10-Philadelphia-kimwolterman

I wrote the final tuition check for Katie last week. Well, if I am being totally accurate, I authorized our MOST 529 plan to write a check to the college for her last semester tuition. It is another one of those parent moments that marks the passage of time and transitions in our children's lives. In some ways it seems like only last year that we wrote our first check to Columbia College, then packed up all her stuff and delivered her to the dorm in Chicago. Since that time she spent nine months in a wonderful condo-like apartment in the city, five weeks in Prague, two weeks in Seoul and nearly four months in Shanghai. She wraps up her final semester in Los Angeles, with semester being defined as a five week time period of attending classes all day, five days a week. (The school knows that no college student - or their parents - could afford to live in LA for more than five weeks.) When she returns the latter part of February it will be time for her to begin the job hunt. She seems to feel that she will not have any problem getting a job. I admire her confidence and pray that she is right. It is still such a tough market out there right now.

Due to the fact that Katie is graduating in less than three years, we have money left over in the 529 plan. That is a great position to be in, but we don't want to withdraw the money and be penalized. So, what to do with it? Do I hear a PhD calling my name?

We learned today of the death of Paul Gassman. Gus, as he was called by the Alph Sigs, was a fraternity brother of Jim's at Iowa State. They were in the same pledge class, and I became a Little Sister of the house the same year. Paul was always full of life and fun, with joy bursting from within every time he opened his mouth. A deeply religious man, he was a great student despite majoring in the tough curriculum of mechanical engineering. He married a girl from the pom pom squad immediately following graduation, and they had a son nine months later. When she inexplicably left him two years later, we were all stunned. He was handsome, built, had a great job and was truly the nicest person I have ever known. What's not to love?

Luckily he met Crystal some years later, and they married and had two little girls, who I think are now about 9 and 11. My brother's wife died when their children were 3, 6 and 9 so I know what a tough road Crystal has ahead of her. I don't understand why the truly beautiful people of the world have to die and the people that are ugly inside and out go on existing. My thoughts and prayers are with the Gassman family as they try to make sense of something that clearly seems nonsensical.