“Graduation: the ceremony of conferring degrees or diplomas, as at a college or school.” (Dictionary.com)
This year thousands will walk the stage at graduation. The tassel of the graduate’s cap will be moved from the right side to the left as they shake hands with the presiding officer who confers the degree.
And so, there you have it.
Wait a minute, do you? “Have it,” that is.
As important as that degree is— high school graduates are more likely to find employment at better wages than non-graduates; and college graduates are more likely than those without a college or training degree, to find attractive career options—there is yet more to it than simply earning a ticket to the possibility of better employment opportunities or continuing to another level of education or training.
It is all that, indeed, as well pursuing dreams involved in that degree.
But still, there’s more to it than even that.
Graduation is an acknowledgement of our dependency on certain people who made the whole project possible.
Take a look at those old graduation pictures, if you will.
You won’t find any with the graduate holding a statistic of better job offers. Nor will you find graduates clutching pictures of the collage, graduate school, or training school of their choice.
Not in that moment.
You’ll find pictures of graduates with big smiles on their faces and their arms embracing parents, grandparents, teachers, and friends.
Those are the people who kept the graduate going, when the chips were down, when the student was discouraged enough to quit.
It’s that teacher who spent the extra hours with the student. It’s that role model whose very presence said, “It is possible, despite what the naysayers are telling you.”
It’s the parent, mentor, or friend who was there during the darkest days.
Those are the encouragers, the cheer leaders, the “pay it forward,” people of the graduate’s life whom the graduate wants in the picture.
And even if some of those special people couldn’t be there for the ceremony, they are still there.
My Mom and Dad arrived early and stayed till the bitter end for my graduations. They were there at my high school graduation in Altus, Oklahoma, my college graduation in Waco, Texas, graduate school graduation in Fort Worth, Texas, and then another graduate school graduation in Princeton, New Jersey. They made them all.
Until the last one, the Ph.D.
I suppose I had finally worn them out.
I found standing myself alone, clutching my doctoral diploma, adjusting my cap, expressionless, like a solitary sentinel, stationed, as it were, on the lawn outside the chapel where the graduation ceremony had just taken place, gazing at the families hugging and laughing, watching them celebrate, knowing it was a fleeting moment, never to be replicated, a surreal moment floating past me like a graceful cloud, carrying with it the awareness that though I was standing alone, others were standing with me.
My mom and dad were there, even though they were also absent, as were the teachers that had taken a special interest in my well-being, from grade school to that very moment.
And suddenly, or so it seemed, my wife, was walking towards me, holding our five-month-old daughter. And then, Katri, with one hand holding the camera while on her hip, her other hand balanced Mary-Elizabeth, snapped a photograph of me, grinning, with my arm around my major professor, Dr. Bill J. Leonard.
The picture still warrants a warm smile every time I see it.
Dr. Seuss summarized it in one sentence: “Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.”
Graduation it is more than a definition, the passing of the tassel, the conferring of a diploma.
It encapsulates life in a moment, a moment of celebration with the people who could be there to raise a high-five, to cheer us forward, along with the ones who, from miles apart or perhaps from eternity itself, beam with satisfaction.
Contact David Whitlock at drdavid@davidwhitlock.orgor visit his website, davidwhitlock.org.