Graduation Week

It's graduation week. Graduation cards and thank you notes blanket William's place at the kitchen table, a long list of people he need to thank covers his cloth napkin. Our friends and family have been so generous that William jokes about the transfer of wealth from my generation to his, which certainly feels true to my checkbook. But I feel lucky to be writing notes of congratulations and checks to William's friends and so grateful to those who send those notes to my son. After the traumatic 15 months these teens have just endured, a weight of worry rises from my chest when I think of all the happy graduates, and the in-person ceremony to come on Friday. I'll be crying buckets when they march into the stadium but inside I'll be thrilling to the rituals they get to experience.

The rainy Memorial Day weekend was a blessing, an excuse to be indoors to clean and prepare for Bill and Connie's arrival. (I haven't seen them in more than a year and a half - insane.) The wet afternoon also provided cover for William and me to go through the past 18 years of photos and family videos, picking out the most relevant for his trifold display board. We'll put the board up at his shared grad party on Friday night, showcasing his cute round baby face and the adorable photos of his friends. The boys shared baseball, basketball, swimming, water polo, camping, boy scouts, school performances and countless other childhood rites.

William 's neighborhood friends have grown with him. The photos we picked out include their cherubic baby cheeks and gap-toothed smiles since they were at most two or three years old when they started playdates and park visits together. William's friends and their families are part of our chosen family and we wouldn't have made it over the hurdles of the past 17 years without them. 

Though I don't typically dwell on future events, the idea of this graduation party has crossed my mind over the years, especially when we celebrated the graduations of older siblings. We moms never doubted that this core group would still be linked, that the bonds of growing up together would hold. Now the cherished idea of finishing K-12 the way we started it - with dear friends at our side - will come to fruition on Friday. Gratitude fights with nostalgia for primacy in my mind, and underneath that battle lies a quiet happiness, a sure knowledge that we are blessed in community, and my children will understand that forever.