A Much-Deserved Milestone

My parents are graduating today.

They’ve already sat through my graduations, all of ’em – from kindergarten to eighth grade to high school to college. So you’d think that this would be old hat. But apparently it’s weirder when it’s not you graduating, and you get to evaluate someone else’s major life choice.

Of course, they’ve also spent way more time in school than I did. When you’re a student, every step has such a firm expiration date on it (usually four years, if you’re doing it right) and so, while I felt like graduating college was an accomplishment, it wasn’t exactly a surprise, and I hadn’t been there that long anyway, and also I had to get out of this ceremony and over to Sacramento for a matinee.

But my parents have been teaching FOREVER. I know my mom started officially teaching long after I was in school, but she was there as an aide before that. I have memories from all ages of my mom at school, from monitoring the playground in elementary school, all the way up to middle school. As a substitute teacher, she took my sixth-grade class on one of our end-of-year field trips.

In high school it was my dad who was always around, whether he was actually teaching the class I was in, or just letting me and all my friends use the computers in his classroom during lunch. (I know, we were the most awesome kids ever, right?) He was one of my class advisors, which meant he led all the class meetings and was all over the prom planning. And probably the prom. Which was fine with me, since me and my parents have always been pretty cool.

But they’re graduating today. And I’m pretty sure they will still have to finish cleaning out their rooms next week (I mean, I could be wrong, but I’m just guessing here – teachers tend to accumulate a lot of stuff), but this is it. I’ve known this was coming for awhile now, but I guess it’s just sinking in.

Everyone keeps asking me, “What are they going to do??” and I just keep saying, “They will be busy.” Neither of them is a sit-around-and-do-nothing kind of person. I mean, maybe for a day. But not for much longer than that. So I’m pretty sure they’ll have things to do. I hope we will get to see each other more often.

Whatever they decide, I am super proud of them and they are extremely deserving of this chance to do whatever they want. So congratulations, you two, and definitely take at least a couple days to sit around and do nothing! (And then come visit me!) I love you both!