Never did I think hearing the news would be this hard.

My dad had prepared me for it for a week. It was a great possibility, and I thought I was prepared enough.

But, sitting across from my grandfather, three days before I left for this fall semester, I realized I was nowhere near prepared.

My grandfather told me in the simplest terms he had cancer, and it did not look good.

The words hit me with such thunderous momentum I thought I would be knocked clear through his living room wall and outside next to the American flag he raised every day.

After that day, I resolved to make sure whatever time I had left with him, I would make count.

And now, five weeks or so into the semester, I realized one night – as I calculated the nine hours of sleep I had accumulated throughout the week – that I had been neglectful.

You see, I put in long hours at my job as news editor for The Daily Eastern News and when I am working, everything else seems to fade away.

For me, this is not acceptable, and it should not be acceptable to you, too.

College is preparing you for the next chapter in your life, but you should not forget about what brought you to this point in the first place.

Family and friends should not fade away, no matter how busy the schedule may be.

When the college years are long gone and cannot be found again, these are the people who will be waiting for you.

If you forget about them now while being too busy, then there is a good chance they will forget about you.

College is fun. College is also hard. Especially juggling school, a job, a social life and maybe a relationship or two. But finding time for people who are not 10 feet away from you should be a priority.

Your new life has a funny way of sneaking up on you and taking hold of everything you do.

But don’t think for a second your job or studies should be raised to a higher value than the people in your life.

Not that school and work aren’t important, but those things go away.

Family and friends need to be factored into your life somehow.

Don’t get sucked into an endless cycle of working, studying and occasionally seeing your friends. Take a few minutes. Call your mom and dad. Call your friends, or do that texting thing I hear is so popular.

Make sure they know they are important now.

Bob Galuski is a senior English and journalism major. He can be reached at 581-2812 or denopinions@gmail.com.