Graduation card

A special young woman I know will graduate from college this Saturday and my first inclination was to go to the store and buy her a card. It's amazing how I've internalized that advertising-driven prompt. As if Hallmark could come up with something better than I could—I know her, and I'm a writer!

But what is left to say about graduation, except perhaps to note that the spelling of the word is what will prompt many to hand-write the word "congradulations" at the bottom of the Hallmark card they picked out? Thousands of graduation speeches will be delivered at schools across the country in the coming month; it's all been said before. But since I've never been asked to give one, I thought I'd devote some space to it here.

For many high-achieving college prep kids, high school graduation was expected and—despite the hoopla and the certificate from the state senator—just a blip in the continuum. College graduation is different. It seems like a threshold between safety and the big bad unknown; between the person who has been reacting to known variables and the person that will be revealed.

That's not the case with this young woman, who despite her considerable accomplishment will have no proud parents watching her walk with her class. The obstacles she's already hurdled reveal graduation as nothing more than a moment in time, a line drawn in quicksand. Don't get me wrong: as the three degrees framed on my wall will tell you, I'm a huge believer in education and I adore ritual and I'll take any opportunity to revisit accomplishments that make me feel as though my life exhibits forward thrust. But at 23, this young woman already knows that school is only part of the education picture, because life has its own way of distributing its lessons. By pulling the rug from under your home life to the point that you must completely re-define the concept of family, for example. Or handing you your own life-or-death health scares. Or by planting within you a dream that cannot be satisfied at your first hometown college, requiring a lone drive across America to try again. 

I know people who, when confronted by any one of these challenges, would choose to wilt within their own victimhood. Yet this young woman has faced them all. Her innocence was crushed long ago—she knows life isn't going to be fair. So, unwilling to wait for dumb luck to turn the tide, she has not waited for graduation to provide life's starting line. Instead, she stacked the odds in her favor before graduation by pursuing an unpaid internship in the highly competitive field of television journalism, a move that has paid off with an entry-level offer at a major network. She has replaced the dysfunction in her birth family with the rewards of love freely given to close friends—one wall of her apartment is plastered with photos of them—and by caring for her Pomeranian, Burklee.

This young woman knows that graduation does not magically commence anything. It is an opportunity to give thanks and see how far you've come, but so is every day. Day by day, life will continue to reveal her inner strength and beauty and call forth the maturation required of her. For the grace with which she has accepted this, I want her to know that she is an inspiration to me. I'm glad to know her and I'll be thinking of her on Saturday. This is her graduation card.

And, so that I don't disappoint:

"Condradulations," Elizabeth!