All over this nation, this time of the year, young men and
women walk down the aisle to the strains of Pomp and Circumstance. They call it
the “walking graduation march.” It’s your last walk down the aisle of your Alma
Mater and you will never forget it. The emotions it brings out in people are
all over the board. You the graduate will celebrate it as the end of high
school or college education. Your parents and grandparents will show mixed
emotions. They wanted nothing more then for you to mature and make something
out of yourself. Something that would make everyone proud. They just didn’t
think it would happen, quite this fast.
Your mom remembers the day she put you on the kindergarten
bus and then went home and cried but luckily you didn’t see that. It too was a
graduation of sorts. You were no longer a toddler but still so immature, and it
was so hard for her let go of the most precious thing she had ever been given
and entrust you to a teacher she barely knew. There were so many firsts over
those years. The refrigerator door was covered with your kindergarten artwork.
You made a little plaster cast of your hand in second grade and painted it for
them and gave it to your parents for Christmas. She still has it in the back of
her sock drawer and just yesterday she took it out and sat on the edge of the
bed and cried-- but again you weren’t there.
Then it was junior high and sports and band and choir and
they used to argue over who was going to pick you up after school. Once at one
of your band concerts you looked out at the crowd and you swore your father was
napping until your mom gave him the elbow in the ribs and he sat up straight,
grimaced and smiled at you. You hit your first home run in softball and never
mind that three people booted the ball-- it won the game and your dad couldn’t
stop talking about it. He thought just maybe you might get an athletic
scholarship after high school.
Then came high school and things got more serious because
all of a sudden you realized that there was an end in sight for high school and
maybe you should think about what you wanted to do afterwards. For a while you
changed your mind as often as you changed your clothes but them something stuck
in your mind and for once in your life you had a goal and mom and dad thought
it was good idea. You had a boy friend and then you didn’t and then you did and
then you didn’t because at least for a while that wasn’t in your plans. You
went to prom and dad let your boyfriend take his car because his Mom was a single
mom and she didn’t have one. You looked so pretty and grownup in that dress and
yes confusingly mom cried again, while dad worried and you weren’t sure if he
worried about you-- or his car.
Then it was your turn for the march and you walked down the
aisle at high school and later at college with your classmates, and this time
they both cried. Then you had a job, a serious boyfriend, a husband and a child
and now tonight twenty-five years later that child is taking his own “walking
graduation march.” You sit quietly with your tissue in your hand and then you
see him looking so regal and he smiles at you and winks with that goofy smile
and yes now-- you understand why mom cried.
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