Soapbox

Second Chances

    Today was the senior breakfast and award ceremony for my daughter Katie, after which I dropped her off at school for graduation rehearsal. I have to admit, I"m feeling just a bit choked up.
   She came away weighed down by all the sashes and medals she has earned by her incredibly hard work for the last 4 years, but the child is nothing if not determined. She must get that persistence from her father, as she does so many good qualities (like her ability to do math!) because while intelligent enough I think I was pretty unfocused in high school. (OK, lets be honest: I’m still rather unfocused!)
    At the end of the ceremony they asked all the kids to come up to the front and un-spooled a big ribbon. In school colors (sliver on black) it said "2009" about every foot. The kids stood in a circle and each took hold of the ribbon until it went all the way around the circle, symbolizing their class and the sense of community they share. Then one by one the kids were cut apart to go their separate ways, but each retaining a section of the ribbon to keep with them as they go.

   As I watched my daughter standing there in the mob of laughing, jostling kids I thought of the times I let go of her small hand to let her stagger- and fall, stagger- and fall…  wiping her baby tears and setting her back on her feet because she was determined to try again. I thought of  letting go of the back of her bicycle and watching her go careening down the sidewalk toward disaster… and washing her scraped knees and helping her back on the bicycle.  I remembered walking her to the school bus for the first time and watching her disappear inside, knowing that adventure but also frustration, disappointment and bullies would be waiting for her. I thought of handing her the keys and watching her drive away by herself for the first time… and then sitting and waiting for the sound of the front door opening to pronounce her safe return. And of course the big one still looms: taking her to college and somehow leaving town without her.

   Sometimes it seems that parenthood is just a series of letting go- to fall down, to make mistakes, to break their heart… to find their own way. Despite her tender heart I am sure that my persistent, dynamic child will find her way pretty well. I hope it doesn’t take her too far from me. And I hope that she realizes how much of high school she will take with her.

    I wish I could go back to my last day of high school. Oh, I don’t want to be 17 again and God knows I don’t want to relive high school!  Aaugh!  But if I could just have that last day back- that last glimpse of all our young, hopeful faces, that last chance to make my mental as well as physical farewells…
    I would love the chance to spend a few minutes with the people I never bothered to get to know because I thought we had nothing in common- but oh, we did. I would like  to hug the people I didn’t hug because I thought they might think I was strange…  to speak a last friendly word to the people that I didn’t realize until much later that I would one day miss and to smile at the ones who I now know would die far too young.

   Tomorrow I"m having lunch with a friend from my high school days. We rode the bus together and chatted at the bus stop every morning, and she was on the crew for some plays we were in. We were never best friends but I liked her very much, yet when high school was over, I walked away without a thought. She was the past, and I was on to the future.
   She lives in Michigan now, but she’s one of the group of people from the class of ’77 with whom I have reconnected- mostly on the internet- in recent years. I love her sense of humor and her great attitude about life. She sent encouraging messages when Ted lost his job, and now that her husband is undergoing some nasty treatment for an aggressive cancer, I try to check in on her once a week. And when she realized that she had to drive through Columbus on a business trip south we arranged to meet for lunch. 
    30+ years after my own graduation I really treasure the chances to get together, even with people I didn’t know that well. Is it the age we were then, or the age we are now that makes those years we spent cooped up together 5 days a week seem like such an unshakable bond? Whatever the reason, I am glad for it.

    I looked at Katie’s smiling face today and I know my daughter isn’t really taking it all in, appreciating it all the way I would if I could do my goodbyes again. Well, who can at that age? She can no more imagine now  what it will be like to be my age than she could have, in kindergarten, imagined what it would be like to graduate from high school.
     It is a cliche, but youth truly is wasted on the young, I suppose. High school can be a really difficult experience, (for some of us really really difficult!) but the reward for the effort is all these amazing people that you get to have some amazing experiences with… and then take them all for granted.  But  if you’re lucky, you look back years later and realize what you had, and find an opportunity to say to at least some of those people, "Turns out, I’m glad we were there together."