Graduation

    It’s that moment in The Greatest Showman, the Crescendo, the one for which you have been waiting the entire movie where you turn the volume all the way up to 11 so you can feel the music in the depths of your soul just as clearly as you feel the tears in your eyes...the moment of anticipation of the smile on their face and excitement to open the gift at Christmas.  It’s the gift for which they have been asking all season, the Red Ryder BB gun with a scope that you skillfully hid from the wife and carefully wrapped and placed in the corner behind the desk, with a sneaky-type grin on your mug, so as not to be discovered by a very inquisitive young boy who had been asking for this very thing from every source ranging from his teacher, to his mother and inevitably, the odd mall Santa with a strange and drama-drawn elongated"Ho-Ho-Ho."

    The million dreams that have been keeping him awake for the past 12 years which he finally gets to realize, and put into action as he crosses the stage to grasp the hand of the principal in one hand and his future with the other.  It’s graduation day, the day for which you have been dreading and dreaming and thinking and praying and the very moment for which you held your breath and your camera phone.  hundreds of parents and grandparents have prepped the party and donned their white linens and brought their sun umbrellas in anticipation of a long wait outside in the noon-day sun to enter an ac-filled gymnasium where popped folding chairs and polished bleachers await the fans and classmates of the seniors who have worked diligently for this day.  They’ve graduated.  They’ve done it.  The many years of picking them up and dropping them off; of staying up late to help with projects, and by that I mean they fell asleep three hours ago on the couch waiting for the guerilla glue to dry while you’ve been maticuloisly finalizing the visuals on the display board and placing the trim on the graphics have paid off.  The many seasons of shooting video for the marching band and carrying the teams pads and cleats, and water bottles, towels and wardrobes and props and house parties and committee meetings, fundraisers, phone calls emails, text messages, early morning practices, late night performances, away games, home game snack bar volunteering and coordinating and cleanups and community building and field trips and plays, art shows, and jazz concerts,  have come to this.  You take another deep breath while they near his name in the alphabet.  The numerous thoughts which you have shared and the hundreds of teaching moments have neared their summation as he begins to take to the stage.  You have poured hours of lectures about integrity and pride, honor and working smart and hard into their hearts and minds and souls for the better part of their life in every effort to help steer your would-be graduate in the right direction away from the many mistakes which you have, unfortunately made in the past hoping they will make new mistakes from which they will learn and apply in their adulthood.

    They may one day even learn what the words “Prince of Humbug” actually mean, or perhaps solve the ever compromising riddle of why a raven is like a writing desk.  A million dreams might be keeping them awake, and yet tonight you can rest easy knowing you have fought the good fight, you have finished the race, you kept the faith.  You handed the top hat and the reins of the circus to your partner so that you could raise your children and watch your daughters play the precious part of the tree in the school play, because it was everything you ever wanted, it was everything you ever needed.  It was there right in front of you, and that's where you wanted to be, but...then again, that's just my humble opinion.