Mother inspired by her late daughter’s dream to attend Liberty earns same degree in her honor

>>This month, Liberty University celebrates over 32,000 graduates who are ready to impact the world as Champions for Christ. Follow Liberty News for full Commencement coverage and more stories of trial and triumph from the Class of 2026.

This weekend, Melinda French-Seger (’26) joined thousands of other graduates in celebrating their academic journeys during Liberty University’s 2026 Commencement. But for French-Seger, the celebration was a bittersweet remembrance of the reason she began her degree three years ago — to honor her daughter, Morgan French, who passed away in a car accident just months before the high school senior was supposed to attend Liberty University.

French-Seger, her husband Jason, her son Tristian, and Morgan came to Lynchburg from Myerstown, Pa., so Morgan could attend Liberty Christian Academy for her final year of high school. French-Seger owned a hair salon but left it behind. She said she had driven past Liberty a couple years prior, and she remembers crying and praying that God would open the right doors for her children to attend Liberty.

“I prayed, ‘Oh Lord, I would love if my kids could go to school there one day; I would love for them to go to a Christian college like that,’” French-Seger said. “It was like a dream God had given me right then. It definitely seemed like a dream come true when we moved here.”

Morgan immediately was engaged in the Liberty community, socializing with her fellow students at LCA and falling in love with the Lynchburg area. She was excited to receive her acceptance letter from Liberty and to begin classes that fall. On March 28, 2023, just eight months after she moved to her new home, Morgan was in a car accident on her way to school and her life was instantly taken.

French-Seger described the day as a “nightmare.” She reached out to a counselor that day who she was friends with, one whom Morgan had seen and also had a child pass away from a car accident. While French-Seger received counseling over the coming months, she said she also saw the ways the Lord offered her family glimmers of hope as they battled through their grief. From the presence of a blue butterfly in their backyard that reminded French-Seger of God’s comfort to a moment in Morgan’s bedroom where French-Seger heard God tell her that He would help through the pain, French-Seger said God was faithful through the suffering.

A few months after Morgan’s passing, French-Seger was looking out at the memorial garden she had created for Morgan, and she said she could sense Christ’s presence in the garden.

“It’s just little things to that God sends us to tell us we’re not alone, that He’s with us and going to help us get through it,” French-Seger said.

Inspired by the help she received from her counselor, French-Seger decided that very summer that she wanted to help other parents who were enduring similar trials.

“Pretty much right after (Morgan’s passing), I was like ‘OK, Lord, you have to use my pain for something, right?’”

Though she was still processing through her grief, she enrolled in Liberty University Online Programs to study a bachelor’s in psychology, the same degree Morgan had planned to complete residentially. She began her studies on the same day Morgan would have started at Liberty.

“There was just this urgency that I wanted to get started right away because I felt like something positive had to come out of this. I feel like I’m honoring her by going to school because she couldn’t. Morgan was a little counselor herself, always helping her friends,” she said, adding that many of Morgan’s friends have said they would not be alive if it weren’t for Morgan’s support and love.

French-Seger said she found her classwork beneficial as she continued the process of healing.

“My classes helped me a lot in my own grieving process, just what we were taught and learning about things like that. I had to do a research project one time, and I picked grief, and researching that, I realized how this works and was learning a different side of it. As I was (grieving), it helped encourage me.”

French-Seger said her classes better equipped her to help other people. She sends flowers and gifts to other parents who have lost their children on their child’s heaven day and birthday, to remind them they aren’t alone.

French-Seger said attending Liberty was originally a dream of her daughter’s, but it also became her own.

“I never knew going to Liberty would end up being my dream; it was a dream I had for Morgan. God is still good, and I am thankful for the opportunity I have been given to go to school, let alone an amazing Christian university,” she said.

French-Seger plans to pursue her master’s in clinical mental health counseling while working at Lynchburg City Schools assisting with speech therapy. As she walked across the stage at her degree ceremony on Saturday and received her diploma, she knew that Morgan would be proud of her achievement.

“Sometimes I feel like I can hear her, saying, ‘You got this mom; we’ll be together again.’ She’d be really proud.”