Class of 2020 graduates and their families already have quite a story to tell, but missing out on all the sacred senior spring festivities enjoyed with close friends has been strange and disappointing for many graduating seniors, to say the least.
Restricted to staying at home, remote learning, sports and extracurricular ended abruptly — a whole series of losses that add up to nothing short of an empty chest of once-in-a-lifetime keepsakes and milestones exclusive to graduating from high school.
Each evaporated into the so-called thin and infected air, consumed by days on a crossed-out calendar where some new and awful virus has made its indelible mark by stealing the dates seemingly for itself and all that comes with it.
It can be viewed as an unfortunate and unfair series of lost events.
It can also represent a time of true reckoning for the collective Class of 2020, for they have forfeited in-person college visits, fist-pumping packed arenas of hard-fought games, both won and lost, live performances on lit stages under the thunderous applause of an audience, steps to podiums climbed in acceptance at awards assemblies, photo booths goofily visited at the pageantry of proms, and the reach for the brass ring of the parent-dreaded and student-driven exciting after-parties, even the silly senior pranks and junior class-clown rivalry — moments that remind us it’s good to bring laughter when it’s needed most.
It usually culminates in joyful, tearful pomp-and-circumstance processions when a graduate’s hand is received in another in time-honored recognition, tassels are ceremoniously swung with sheepish or victorious resolution, and every cap is freely launched in unison like confetti to the sky.
The sight of a graduation gown recalls the moments I walked across a graduation stage and watched our four children do the same.
Now we envision our grandchildren being able to experience it someday. It’s one of the most exciting times for everyone, filled with achievement and aspiration.
The crowd swells with such collective pride and everyone can feel it.
Nearby a robust circle of jocular graduates puff their cigars; another group of friends hug, their bouquets forming a ring of flowers about them; many take selfies with siblings and cousins and aunts and uncles; a balloon slips free, heading toward the sun and no one seems to notice.
As the crowd disperses, gangs of graduates head to parking lots, robes flowing as they pass messages on car windows written in school colors celebrating the graduates.
Parties are about to kick off, some soon, some in the coming spring weekends, and they all will leave their calling cards, which look like lines of cars against a greening spring and shiny balloons beckoning from the ends of driveways.
The scent of lilacs will perfume the graduates’ praises and the potluck of mouth-watering cookouts and unpacked picnics will rise alongside amplified music and the proud voices of families and friends.
The occasion brings a giddiness for graduates, and it hovers happily overhead like a billowing diaphanous membrane about to burst open with salutations.
The simple act of gathering to cheer the graduates holds them in high regard, no matter what their standing or where they’re headed, for the very act of graduating is more than enough, even more than enough in that very moment, because what matters is the acknowledgment of the accomplishment itself by loved ones.
It means the freedom to decide to take the first step toward one’s own realm of possibility and promise.
That moment is one to be savored with its good wish alone, and rightly so, for it has no finite end in sight because it means the beginning of something new.
A graduate gets to revel in that tangible swell of love, behold a tide they will begin to ride in their own way toward their own sweet independence.
What more could any parent hope for?
Up until a few months ago, none of us dreamed it would be any different, but as uncertainty continues to encompass our world like a gathering of vast, dark clouds, we try to find openings.
Though the coronavirus pandemic has tried to darken the dance of graduation festivities and silence the close gatherings on which they depend, I believe we’ll look back and see it is to no avail.
The graduates receive their first unexpected “gift” from an unknown virus, a badge that is only pinned by historical and challenging times.
The rise to the challenge will show the true strength of our graduates’ merits and the mettle upon which they will not only survive, but thrive.
From many accounts, the coronavirus will have a difficult time dampening a resounding school spirit cultivated by the blood, sweat and tears of students, teachers and staff over the years and semesters.
From measured distances, there is an enduring and growing good will of communities and their innovativion-inspired industry to overcome the hurdles that life hurls from time to time.
For any of us mourning the loss of being able to celebrate together in the many ways leading up to our graduates’ pinnacle moment, we have to let go of it and let our graduates have their due, because they are saying loudly and clearly, “I am ready!”
The signs and billboards congratulating the Class of 2020 staked outside schools all across this nation say so.
So let’s get to celebrating our graduates, for this is their unique and everlasting story that will define them.
When a mind has a chance to meet up with challenge, something it’s designed to do so well, it will meet that adversity in myriad ways.
Cause for celebration, if we make it such.
This weekend, we’ll be driving the four miles across town and getting in line for a surprise parade of cars to help celebrate some very special graduates who live near us.
It’s high time for celebration.
And if you listen very carefully, I’m sure you’ll hear the cheers from open car windows and the happy beeps of horns rising from cities and towns across the country.
The crescendos move the air and clear the dark clouds.
A chorus hits the jubilant notes and is carried from sea to shining sea and over every purple mountain majesty and back home like the refrain of a soaring eagle returning to its nest.
“Our presence will be the best present,” says Steve, and though I plan to make signs with well-wishes and lob a gift box or two, I know he’s right. We all do.
Bonnie J. Toomey teaches at Plymouth State University and writes about writing, learning and life in the 21st century. You can follow Parent Forward on Twitter at https://twitter.com/bonniejtoomey. Learn more at https://ift.tt/29SgW82 or visit bonniejtoomey.com.
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May 18, 2020 at 07:39PM
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Let’s hear it for the Class of 2020! - Sentinel & Enterprise
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