The Optimism of Graduation Time

As May slips away from us, the prospect of a long hot summer looms.

Maybe the longest summer we’ve seen, thanks to the coronavirus.

Our kids have already had their three months off from school and they’ve done a decent job of soldiering on, but with three more months before school starts again, I wonder what June and July and August will hold.

Especially without the prospect of church festivals and library summer programs and vacation bible schools and movie nights on the square (though the drive-in movie series at the fairgrounds is a great idea). But before any of us have to fill those voids, we’ve still got a bit of May left - and graduation season has arrived (three county schools hold their ceremonies this week), the perfect dose of optimism when we all need it most.

The graduation ceremony at La Grange High School (coming later in June) is one of my favorite things to cover every year. There are so many emotions so tightly packed into a one-hour ceremony.

Excitement, Sadness, Promise, Uncertainty.

And that’s just the graduates.

The crowd is going through a whole other range of emotions.

I love hearing the series of student speakers try to boil down their high school experience into a few minutes of carefully chosen words.

Sometimes the visiting guest speaker is great. Sometimes not. But it never really matters.

The kids are the stars of the show - and it’s always great to see so many from the community (beyond just family members) come out to support them. Then is all crescendos into a few seconds ofhat tossing on the edge of football field and a new crop of 150 of so La Grange teens are turned out into the real world.

I’ve got two years until our oldest graduates from high school, but the Wick family does have one graduate this season.

Our youngest is graduating from preschool and will be heading off to kindergarten in the fall - in whatever forms that takes.

For 11 consecutive years we’ve had a kid (or two) in some form of preschool or daycare until now. Dig It! and Mt. Calvary have been loving second homes to those wily Wick kids.

The last three months, however, the preschool was closed, but there are plans to get those five-years-olds back together one last time for a graduation over at Mt. Calvary at some point in June.

And we’re glad for it.

We’ve had two boys already go through such an event, so we know what to expect. Our youngest will don a miniature blue cap and gown and they’ll sing a few songs, my wife and I will fight back a few tears (her more successfully than me), and then they’ll call the kiddos up to the front of the church and give them a little diploma.

They’ll all sing this little song, which for some reason I have committed to memory after so many preschool graduations over the years.

I’m a little graduate look at me. I’m off to kindergarten, aren’t you proud of me?”

And then Mt. Calvary will turn out a couple dozen kids out into a world that’s a lot bigger and a little less comforting that the safe little preschool they are leaving.

I’m not sure I have any advice for this year’s graduates.

This world is constantly re-inventing itself, so I’m not sure I have much more insight into how to navigate things than those 18 year-olds do.

I’m 42 years old and I’m not sure how to act any more.

We are a nation in mourning, as 100,000 people have died from the coronavirus and millions others have lost their jobs.

But is it OK to have fun and celebrate things?

I have to confess that on the first weekend Texas beaches were reopened a few weeks ago the Wick family packed up and headed out and had an absolutely wonderful Saturday on the coast -never getting within 10 feet of anybody else.

But I felt a little guilty about it. How to we make sense of things anymore? Actually, we all might do well to seek advice from the fresh eyes of a graduate’s perspective.

Or the even fresher perspective of a preschool graduate.

I questioned our son, what this whole graduation thing means to him. What is he able to do now that he couldn’t before?

He’s come up with two developments.

No. 1, graduating means he can now dress himself, he said.

And I have learned, courtesy of him, that shirts and shorts both fit well, and look just fine, when worn backwards or inside out, or both.

And No. 2, our son said graduating means he’s able to punch harder than before - something he’s willing to demonstrate for you, if given the invitation.

Graduation means different things to different people.

But in a world where everything else seems to have hit the pause button, I’m eagerly awaiting the graduation ceremonies to come.