The bagpipes announcing the University of Colorado's commencement ceremony echo through my living room as I grapple with William's final days of college. I'm transported back to those same haunting notes of "Amazing Grace" drifting across Harvard's Quincy House courtyard three decades ago, when I faced adulthood with a hangover, misty eyes, and boundless uncertainty.
William—true to collegiate tradition—warned us he'd be "under the weather" from celebratory revelry. We'll skip the stadium ceremony for the more intimate computer science department festivities, where his name will trigger joyful cheers from his siblings as he crosses that symbolic stage. The grandparents will join us, creating a beautiful tapestry of generational support.
The nearly 22 years since William's birth feel impossible—those early days that crawled by, the whirlwind of youth sports and elementary school, then the increasingly swift current of high school and college. Now William joins his sibling Aden in adulthood, preparing to launch his professional life in New York this August.
My neighborhood text threads buzz with fellow parents of graduating seniors. We confess our contradictory emotions: fierce pride alongside disbelief, profound joy tangled with quiet heartache as we close the final chapter of our children's dependent years.
The world awaiting them seems harsher than the one we entered at their age—though perhaps that's merely the anxious lens of parenthood. These graduates, marching across my screen with sunglasses glinting, embrace the morning light with an infectious optimism that beautifully counters the ceremonial music guaranteed to moisten any parent's eyes.
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