She Graduates

She graduates . . . and you want to post a picture, say something about how time flies but you know that this will never encompass what you feel and maybe this is why you find it difficult to post on social media but you try anyway. You sit in tender recognition of this thing called time and growth, of transitions and of new era’s, of looking back and moving toward the new. You recall the different shapes of her, the chubby, the slim, the dimpled, those bitty feet; and the old angles of you both around the house, holding on to coffee tables for balance, bending over and reaching up as she says, “Hold you, hold you.”

You’ve seen the kids graduate and move on, but you never thought it’d be her because time kept you wedged within a week. But then it pushes you out into the future and you are sitting in a wooden little-kid chair because this is not a high school graduation, but a sixth-grade end-of-elementary-school ceremony. And she will give a speech and your heart will do this thing, this impossible thing, it will break open again. You will want to hold on to one dear detail from this moment; you look at her and you tuck it beneath the covers of your heart. You think of your future self looking back at this present self . . . she is not laughing at you for feeling such depth of emotion at an elementary graduation, even though she knows this is only one of many crossing overs. She is thanking you, you who watches closely. You who can see that you are staring right into your vulnerability of time. You know that one day it will be you that she is leaving. You allow it to happen, you breathe and you love.

Our routine of the last six years is complete. We are preparing for a world/home education. May we use what we know to establish new and thoughtful rhythms.