So, there was supposed to be a recessional.....

 **Audience is asked to stand in place until academic staff and graduates have exited the field.
(from the commencement program).

This didn't happen, but I get ahead of myself.

The difference of having my two four years apart is as different as my two...two completely different people with two completely different sets of things going on. Looking back over the last 17 years in this school district through the lens of our unique perspective (because I know there isn't a family like ours, or we would have met them by now), I have to say the boys did okay, measured by the yardstick of the norm.

However, we sit outside of that, so by any measure, they blew the roof off of every expectation anyone has ever had of them.  Well, except for me and dad, because neither of us expected any less from our kids.

But, we're not done, yet.  They both have a whole lifetime ahead of them. 

But, in the moment, there's this moment, where all the teachers and graduates process in, caps, gowns, sashes, medals, ribbons--all the pomp and circumstance. What's different about this moment and the one four years ago is, well, everything. Elder's class was just ahead of The Last Normal.  Then pandemic, then everything shut down, derailed, and everyone is in the same damn ocean flailing because the boat that was our "normal" sank into the unprecedented.

So younger's night looked like elder's, except it wasn't.

Graduation was an hour earlier--why?  Because Ida took out the stadium lights last September when the world ended, and they haven't been replaced, yet. It was an hour earlier, and an hour hotter.  But, all of the family and friends packed the stands, like four years ago, because we could, and because we all need a little more of the "normal" that sank. Even the speeches reflected the difference of the last four years from when they arrived. In sophomore year, they were supposed to be off for two weeks--not to return in person for the rest of the year. That year lost what we had last night--that "normal", that celebration.  Their junior year started in that same fashion--and a lot of activities were canceled, and the seniors who were supposed to have "their year"....didn't.

And this is the thing that put all our kids in the same boat...in the same struggle. Everything we had expected just wasn't THAT anymore. 

Four years ago, the closing, class response, and recessional went off with precision; everyone stood in place while the graduates and faculty filed out and glided by twos back to the A-Plex.

Last night,  it was not that. 

After the Class Response, "Uptown Funk" blared through the speakers.  The graduates tossed their caps into the air.  Then they all started looking for their caps.  And then they all started hugging, shaking hands, exchanging fist bumps.

And then any semblence of "normal" went out the window.  Dammit, this was a celebration, so the hell with that recessional.  Let's all go down to the field and join them!

So we did. 

It's a good way to close out this chapter. 

We'll enjoy this moment. Because we still have a lot to do.