There is a certain air of respect that goes along with being an alumnae member. In our chapter of Kappa Delta, when an alumnae member enters the room, all of the active members stand in a show of respect. Many alumnae members are graduates from our chapter who have been our close friends and confidants, and seeing them progress in life while still making time to come home and visit us is always heartwarming. Recently, we had a speaker come back during spirit week to talk to us about the importance of recruitment and life after having graduated. Maybe it was the significance of having spent a week being surrounded by my sisters gearing up for another year, or maybe it was the fact that three of my closest friends in the chapter graduated last year, or perhaps it was the thought of my own graduation coming this May, but her speech brought tears to my eyes. Once again, I am reminded that as much as I love the family I've found within my chapter, there will very soon come a time when I will be forced to leave them - a thought which fills me with apprehension and dread.

It wasn't long after this speaker finished that there was a knock on our door and the room filled with women of all ages, from all chapters, all alumnae. While they are all at different walks in life pursuing their individual dreams, they too had been in our shoes at one point, many of them at our same school, living in our same house. In groups of two or three, we gave them tours of our home and listened as they told stories which brought life to the house in an entirely new way. As we walked through rooms, they told stories of studying together in our chapter room on long tables that used to be set up in there, of running around campus on exciting scavenger hunts, of dinners together, of a chef that always made a plate of the chewiest chocolate brownies found on Earth. Their stories fed off of one another's memories, until all of this was painted with such vivid detail I felt as if I had experienced it myself, and the more rooms we entered, the stronger their sense of nostalgia grew until it was almost tangible.

Walking with them into the room that now belongs to my best friend, the room in the house that I feel most comfortable and at home in, their stories transfixed me, transporting me back in time. "That used to be my bed" an alumnae exclaimed, pointing to the bed on which my best friend now slept, the bed just earlier that morning I had collapsed onto in exhaustion. "Do you remember the time my little turned everything upside down? My whole bed and everything on my desk?" The two laughed hysterically. "Remember the time my Big put garlic on my toothbrush? Or what about the time we hid all her stuffed animals in the closet and she freaked out? There used to be lights hanging from these beams, don't you remember?" "Oh, yes, those white ones that we put red in during Christmas?"

Suddenly in that little room, in the spot above the bed where the photos of my best friend and I now hang, I can see in my mind's eye the pictures of the alumnae 20 years ago. I try to picture my friends and I in 20 years, with more wrinkles, perhaps different hairstyles and definitely with completely different lives. As I look around the room I know the women standing here with me have seen so much more than I have seen. Some have had marriages, others have embraced their independence, some have had or adopted children, some have been through the pain of divorce. They have been through various careers, many moves, deaths, and loss. They have experienced joy and pain, success and failure, and above all, they have grown. Their friendship has endured the test of time, and they have done it together. Their sisterhood is beautiful because it has lasted, unwavering, throughout the ups and downs of life and that same sisterhood, is one in which I too share.

"How many people are coming to dinner next month?" "Oh, at least 40 this time... gets bigger every year". Just like that, my angst diminishes and I am encouraged.

AOT my sisters. And to those rushing this year, all I can say is I wish you all the best as you too, go Greek and find the sisterhood in which you can be proud to call your home.