Office of Public Relations
Missouri Baptist University
One College Park Drive
Saint Louis, Missouri 63141-8698
314.392.2307 / fax 314.392.2265
www.mobap.edu / pr@mobap.edu
For Immediate Release
RE: Saying Goodbye
Saying Goodbye
January 22, 2007
Aug. 21, 2006 was move-in day for new MBU student residents. All in all, more than 300 students—each with, no doubt, their own stories of triumphs and struggles—began their new lives at MBU. This is Luke McAnally’s story.
Just as the scorching sun begins to wane, Luke McAnally makes one last trek from his new dorm room inside the Pillsbury-Huff Residence Hall for the last few belongings still located in the back of his Chevy S-10 Pickup.
As Luke steps out, his mother, Marleeta, quickly pulls a card out of her purse and jots a quick note on it before tucking it inside the sheets of Luke’s new bed. At first, Marleeta wasn’t gong to make the trip up to St. Louis for MBU’s Welcome Weekend.
“You know, I just thought Luke’s made this trip before, I don’t think I’ll need to go,” she explained. “Last Tuesday it started to hit me so I called my boss and asked if I could get off work.”
So with that card, which Luke—a Biblical Studies major and member of MBU’s Spirit Wing—found later that night, and a couple of final hugs, Luke’s mom and his 13-year-old sister Rebekah were on their way back to their home in Marion, Ill.
Leaving your eldest child at college is never easy. But for the McAnally family, saying the freshman farewell didn’t seem quite as affected. There were no tears. No prolonged embraces. Just a couple of hugs and a hidden card.
After all, Luke would be home in a month or so. Then, they’d catch up. They’d laugh. They’d live. No, this wasn’t goodbye; this was merely the beginning of a temporary separation.
The McAnally family knows the raw emotions associated with a true goodbye.
After battling with Multiple Sclerosis for more than a decade, Luke’s dad, a former Southern Baptist Pastor in Southern Illinois, died on Dec. 19, 2003. That day was Luke’s sixteenth birthday.
“I stayed up with him all night that night,” Luke recalled, as tears rolled down his face one morning this past fall as told his story over coffee. “I just watched him all night long, his body would just leap. Then at about 5 a.m. his vital signs flat lined. And he died.”
Later that day, Luke successfully passed his drivers test.
For most of Luke’s childhood, the McAnally family dealt with the delicate balance of living life while caring for a family member with Multiple Sclerosis, a chronic, inflammatory disease that affects the central nervous system.
“As my dad got progressively worse, I was forced to grow up really, really fast,” Luke said. “I really didn’t have another choice.”
At thirteen, Luke remembers the first time he gave his dad a shot. As the disease progressed, he recalls routinely crushing up medicine before administering it through his dad’s feeding tubes. At his worst, his dad would have to point with his left hand—the only part of his body that he cold move—to letters on a sheet of paper to communicate.
Besides near paralysis, he lost the vast majority of his vision. Still, he rarely missed his kid’s school functions.
“He would tell my mom, ‘It doesn’t matter if I can see him. It matters that he can see me,” Luke recalled.
After long days of school, football practice and choir rehearsals, Luke would regularly make the long 90-minute roundtrip to the nursing home where his dad spent much of the last year of his life.
It wasn’t always so tough, though.
With green Astroturf below his feet and a grape snow cone in his hand, a five-year-old Luke followed his dad’s unwavering leadership and said the most important prayer of his life. Luke became a follower of Christ.
He knew then that his father would be instrumental in the growth of his faith. Now, as he launches his college experience at MBU, he knows how.
“I have a testimony now that carries some weight. The situation was not what I wanted, but it was still a blessing,” Luke said. “People say they think I am crazy, but this is a blessing. His death allowed him a way out of his prison. So, I tell it to praise the Lord. It’s tough, but it’s my responsibility.”
« MBU President urges compassion, love
News Archives
MBU Women’s Track Team Wins Missouri Sports Hall of Fame Achievement Award »
Missouri Baptist University is a premier Christian university in Saint Louis, offering graduate and undergraduate studies in over thirty specialized fields and nine degrees. MBU's education and fine arts programs are nationally known in addition to business, religion, administration of justice, and more. MBU is one of the fastest growing higher education institutions in Missouri with an enrollment of over 4,500 students at five locations in the bi-state region — West County, Lincoln County, Jefferson County, Franklin County and the new Illinois extension at Lewis and Clark Community College.
# # #
