Cap Trick

Caps up, Sun shining

Three of our four kids have graduated from something in the last month.

If you want time to insult you, to prove that it’s rude, that it wins again, rapid-fire milestones are highly effective. These weeks have felt ridiculous. My camera roll filled with bright, Big Deal pics, the kind that mark important dots on each kid’s personal timeline, clustered in a silly short span.

The first graduation was my oldest’s from grad school. We had been at the same ceremony last year when she graduated from undergrad. On that steamy day, the commencement speaker was introduced as an Archbishop. He approached the podium, stepped up to the mic, and the first thing he said that he was not an archbishop; that he was just a bishop. He went on to be exactly that inspiring while graduates dozed off or held their heads in their hands, and generally suffered and sweated out all their senior week choices.

The ceremony felt a bit unceremonious.

But grad school was different. This year, my husband, daughter and I went out to breakfast beforehand. We skipped the all-school stadium part and went only to her school’s service under a pleasant tent on a lawn. My daughter was well-rested and showered and dressed up. Her college friends were the same, and were there because they’d taken the day off from work to come. My daughter felt proud — something she’d been incapable of…