’Tis the Season of Graduations

I had flashbacks to my undergraduate college graduation last weekend, as I sat in the audience of some 5,000 school-affiliated friends, faculty, and family members, at the commencement ceremony for the Wake Forest University class of 2026.I was there to watch my now-grown-up granddaughter, Lilly, matriculate, and the experience may have been as meaningful to me as it was to her.From the time she was born, her grandmother and I talked about the milestone moments to come in her life.Watching her receive a diploma in her black gown with a gold banner was one of those singular life instances of both completion and of beginning. The end of studying and exams, and the start of life in the “real world.”It was exciting and a touch bittersweet for me, since her now late grandmother was not there to witness it in person.

I especially enjoyed the eloquent words of the commencement speaker, Misty Copeland.A recently retired prima ballerina, she talked about her early years as a self-starter.With my hearing aid tuned loudest, I was able to hear this accomplished young woman recount the experience of growing up as a child of a working single mother, living itinerantly in motels.Her path to becoming a world-class ballerina was paved with talent, resilience, determination, and her mother’s love.

We live in phases – infancy, childhood, adolescence, college and graduate school for some, and then work/career. One hopes that all the time spent away from home at college is preparation for this latest phase.It is called commencement for a reason, as it represents what all that work for four years has been leading up to: the start of a new life, a new home, a new city, new friends, a new purpose.