Luke Kluchko was my friend at Pitt. He was actually friend number three for me. He passed away last week, and although Luke and I weren’t friends who met for lunch every day or planned trips to see each other post-graduation, his death is still a painful loss. Walking with my dog this morning, it came to me why the news of his death made me so sad, and I realized also, why just knowing Luke, I know an awful lot about his family.

Let me explain:

My parents were very committed to each of us going to college, but we could only apply to state schools. My older brother chose Penn State, and while I would enjoy spending a few paragraphs here disparaging PSU, and I think Luke would approve, let’s just say, it wasn’t for me.

My parents didn’t attend college, so the normal visits to campuses, apply early, yadda, yadda, yadda wasn’t what we did. I read about Temple and the University of Pittsburgh. I had been to Philadelphia but never Pittsburgh, so I thought, ‘why not?” I sent my application in maybe a week before the deadline, and thankfully, got accepted.

College may have been another planet. I didn’t know much about anything aside from the fun parties I attended at the local university. I knew there were parties and classes. I didn’t realize just how terrifying it would be to land at a school where I knew no one. There wasn’t a single person from my high school attending Pitt. Still, I thought, ‘how hard can it be?”

Orientation was in the middle of the summer. A friend of a friend knew someone from the neighboring town going to Pitt as a freshman too. Her name was Rose, and her classmate, Kelly, was also going. We agreed to drive together to orientation.

After the six-hour drive, we each went into our assigned rooms. There was a young woman lying asleep on one of the beds in my room. After a few minutes she woke up. She said, “Oh hi! You must be my roommate. My name is Kyle. My real first name is Mary, but I hate that name, so everyone calls me Kyle.” We were fast friends, although she didn’t believe me at first that my name actually was Mary.

Kyle and I wanted to find every party we could. We had no idea where anything was on campus, but somehow, we ended up at a Delt party. Feeling really cool, we went up to one of the brothers and asked, “where is the keg?” We didn’t realize there was a bar everyone called The Keg, so when he began to give us street names and where to turn left and how many blocks to walk, we were really confused. Along comes the protagonist of this story, Luke. As I have said to others, if you know anyone who went to Pitt in the 80’s, there is no need for a last name. Luke was like Beyonce, first name only.

I can’t tell you what he said, what we talked about, whether there was dancing, I don’t remember the details. This is the part where I explain why I know so much about his family without having ever met them.

Did you ever hear of the Maya Angelou quote, “At the end of the day people won’t remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.”? I was an eighteen-year-old girl who didn’t know a soul in that city except for Kyle, Rose and Kelly, and I barely knew them. Luke introduced us to so many people, but he didn’t do it as, “look who I found wandering in, some freshman girls we could take advantage of.” Right away, it was “these are my friends, Mary and Kyle.”

It is no surprise that Luke has sisters. I imagine he was an amazing brother, because that’s what it felt like I had found that very first night, a really great big brother. Luke made you feel respected, heard, and most of all, he made you feel so safe. Those are attributes you can’t give unless you have first received them.

I have read enough parenting books to learn we really don’t need to give our kids everything. There are only a few key things they need, and the really cool thing is, if they get them from you, they get to pass them onto others.

Safety

First of all, of course, is safety. We all need to feel physically safe, but emotional safety is crucial too. Luke got that, and he gave it. You could tell Luke anything, and you never got the feeling he would use it against you, make fun of you about it or share it with others if you wanted it to remain secret. His family must have created a safe space for him, and he so generously provided the same for me and countless others.

Feeling Felt

One of my favorite terms I have heard used about relationships is, “we all need to feel felt.” Isn’t that just a great way of saying such an important human desire? Luke was President of this, head of that, in charge of countless endeavors on that college campus. It wasn’t because he had this huge ego. It was because he sincerely cared about people. He listened. He processed what you said, and even if he disagreed with you, you felt heard.

His family had to have been such an important and captive audience in his development. How else to explain how someone so young could be chosen as leader trusted by so many of his peers? He listened to us and encouraged us in ways that furthered our own growth and development.

Having a Growth Mindset

So much has been written about this topic, so I won’t go into great detail here, but the best way I know to describe it for today’s purposes, is to say you have a greater vision for a person than where they are currently. We all want big things for our children even before they are out of diapers. We imagine them achieving, thriving and being successful.

We have it for our kids, but who among us has it for our peers — in college? It is extraordinarily rare for a college student to look at another college student and say, “I can see you accomplishing…running for…applying for…” Luke saw stuff in me, in his fraternity brothers, in so may people that they did not initially see in themselves. It’s really remarkable how many people could tell you, “Luke encouraged me to…”

One of the first things college students are told is “make your big campus small.” It means find your club, your group, your team, your Greek organization, find something that is a small unit where you can feel at home on a big campus. In many cases, you are placed in a freshman dorm, and your first small unit are the people on your floor.

I was somehow placed on the Theta Phi Alpha floor of Amos Hall. It was a sorority without enough members to fill the rooms. There were a few other freshmen there with me. Two went home on weekends, two were nursing students who studied even before classes began, and one just kept to herself.

I had no small unit those first few weeks, so it wasn’t easy to figure out what to do with so much time each day and especially on the weekends. Luke always asked what I was doing, invited me to events and parties, and of course, he encouraged me to rush.

Meeting Luke at orientation, his inclusiveness, kindness and generosity changed those first few weeks from possibly being incredibly lonely and difficult, to instead, the beginning of many really wonderful memories and friendships I continue to hold dear.

We didn’t talk all the time or plan visits, but he was incredibly important to me, and I would like to thank his family for raising such a special man and sharing him with all of us.