I usually go to great lengths to avoid naming the children in these posts. I call them by their numbers instead since we are not much into nicknames. Growing up as one of 11, you were lucky to get called your own name and, on occasion, my mom would just snap her fingers and you were supposed to figure out who she wanted in the moment. But I digress…
This post is about Emily. She graduates eighth grade this year. True, it’s not a milestone like college or medical school or perhaps even high school. It’s more like part of the normal growing up process and, in this town, the law. Still, it’s an event worth celebrating.
When her big sister graduated last year, relatives came. There was a party, a Mass, a celebration, gifts, cake. She got to see a Broadway play with mom and dad and the family’s favorite priest.
Emily got a sign in the yard.
She feels the slight the universe has dealt her and knows that others are celebrating the same way. She tries not to take it personally, but she’s a kid. She will turn fourteen in a few weeks and, like every fourteen year old, she is filled with hormones and attitude and excitement and wonder and hopes and fears and eyes that roll. She is excited about high school but nervous about going to clean out her locker. She is looking forward to new challenges in a new school, but hesitant about what school will look like when it reopens in the fall. Like all of us, she is facing a new reality that has yet to be defined and seems to change every day.
The sign in the yard doesn’t quite cover it.
Emily is the kind of kid that, at a young age, sought out the ones on the playground that had no one to play with and engaged with them. She wants justice for all and peace in our world, but will turn on a sibling who chews with their mouth open faster than anyone I know. She is helpful and kind, a good cook and talented student. She is social and bright and conscientious. She can also be moody as hell and can cut the room with a tone that gives even me the chills.
In the coming weeks, her mom and I will plan a party and family and friends will join virtually. We will toast her with sparkling cider and make her queen for the day. There will be gifts and a homemade cake and her school will do a special video with all those annoying baby pictures the parents hate submitting. We will do what we can to make sure she knows we are proud of her and this milestone in her life.
Most of all, we will pray that she and her siblings will soon be able to visit with friends, return to school unmasked, and maybe even go to the beach. It will take a miracle, to be sure, but we are people of hope.
In the meantime, let us collectively pray for graduates everywhere and for their parents who look for ways to make these rites of passage meaningful during these interesting and challenging times.