The High School Graduate

By Emmanuelle

It’s universal. When a child graduates from high school, he goes through the ceremony with triumphant glee, and with a hop and a skip on his toes. Why wouldn’t he? He did it! He hurdled over this jump! He is done and over with the regimented classrooms, with admin and teachers whose words were laws unto themselves, with fences and gates to swallow him whole for the eight hours the sun is at its most beguiling.

Don’t get me wrong. The high school graduate is not ungrateful. He would   look back to the years spent in those four walls and the fenced-in compound as the most wonderful of his formative years. Later in life, he would attend more reunions with his high school or even elementary batch than with the college brads. And he would be more unselfish with his time and his concerns, if not with his money, to the schools where he first learned his abc, grammar, essays, book reports; his 123, arithmetic, mathematics, algebra, geometry; also his science, biology, physics; his history and other social sciences; not to forget, his good manners and right conduct, the values education; and, of course, sports development and military training.

He would look back, with warmth, to the teachers who led him to “the threshold of his own mind”. And he would always treasure in his being the seeds of friendship and young love that he found here, for “in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.”

Though, today, in his white robes, one can almost see the feathers sprout on his wings! You see, tomorrow he steps unto a new world! A world that he had seen in his dreams, and a world which he must pass through in his own time, on his own.

The still-young parents would look at each other, grasp each other’s hands, and feel their hearts swell with pride and affection. They have gone a long way from mere beginnings, haven’t they? Still not theirs are the tears, the fears for a child roaring to break free from the bonds of home; tomorrow’s adult has four to five college years more to go.  For the meantime, this child is theirs to own and to hold safe.

Then, they would realize: this child is not a child anymore. 

To the parents, and to the graduates who would someday be parents of graduates themselves,

I offer this tribute:

It was yesterday; or was it so many years ago? Time seemed to have stopped. Or time seemed to have rushed. As we watch you move among this white-robed crowd, we ask ourselves:

Where is the child whose face we wiped free from grime? Where is the child whose bruises we had swabbed with tincture and had charmed dry with our breaths? Where is the child whose scrawny arms and legs had circled our necks, our waists? Where is the child whose tears we kissed, whose fears we hushed?

Where is the child of a sometime morn, on that first day of the endless schooldays? Whose sweaty, little palms clutched us tight, begging us not to leave him just like that, with soon-not-to-be strangers but on that first day, strangers every one? Whose puckered red lips quivered, whose pint-size form looked so frail, so lost, when we left him anyway?

Where is the child of the musky, dusty socks? Of the chalky, dotty cheeks? Of measles, chickenpox, fevered forehead, sneezes, nose drips and coughs? Of spiders, marbles, rubber bands, yoyos, jackstones and bubble gums? Of shorty shorts, starchy pants, khaki smarts and baggy slacks? Of lost hankies and not-so-white whites? Of bags and lunch-boxes weighing tons? 

Today, a beginning ends. And yet, beginnings never really end, do they? We close this book of childhood with fond and gentle thoughts. We wrap it in satin or silk and tie with ribbons of lace. Then, we shelve this book. Our library of precious memories slowly fills.

This half-child, half-grown, turns a leaf, a page of a book anew. And a fresh beginning starts.

God, and our love be with you, child. Always.

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