Elijah ended his primary school career today. Thirteen years, six schools, two districts, one diploma, and enough accomplished to move on in the fall.
It’s strange to be sitting here at the finish line. Certainly, he has to graduate and get his diploma to make things official, and he’ll be back at it in a higher-learning context for several more years, but that’s next week’s / next fall’s problem. Today marks the end of the ritual known as going to school.
I remember putting him on a bus thirteen years ago wondering how this is even possible. He was so young. Handing my heart to a strangers’ care, only to get it back at the end of the day; changed, improved, matured. Watching him become an autonomous person was a gift and a trial.
Then, weeks ago I sat listening to him give his senior speech at the theater banquet. He spoke with charisma and wit, surrounded by friends and cheered by his peers after seven amazing and successful years as a theatre technician and fly lead, a vital part of an incredible community.
Finally watching the results of his work roll in. Everything done, graduating with honors. A summer here then off to wilds of Arizona. The odometer rolls over and life for him and for us continues one day at a time. That bus stop seems so far away. And it seems like yesterday.
So,
Like the trees I name, and the songs I write about moments that matter only to a few of us, but for us they matter a great deal, I take today to mark the graduation of Elijah, lord of the flies.
