When Graduation Changes Your View

I’d known it was coming for months—how they’d pass their own milestones this year and graduate. Him, the oldest of the five, towering tall. And her, the youngest, vibrant and sweet.

He graduated from high school with all the pomp and circumstance—the tassel-shifting, hat-tossing, and cheering with streamers flying high into the sky.

And she left kindergarten after her whole class sang the song Fingerprints, complete with all the hand motions and a standing-room-only audience of kindergarten parents, holding their cameras and their Kleenex.

It all happened within twenty-four hours—both of them moving on. And it was enough to spin me silly, while my mind hung on and my heart tried to hold it together.

Because sometimes even though you know what is about to happen, your heart still has no idea until the moment arrives. [Tweet that]

How is it possible that the drudgery through my daily days has become a light-speed trip through years?

He is eighteen and a half, yet I still remember the toddler years like they were yesterday—his chubby hand holding mine and rocking him to sleep all limp and relaxed. Smelling his soft blonde hair and patting his back in a rhythm steady and sure. I thought it was cliché to say that time flies, but it has never become so real to me as now.

I sit at his graduation as they enter in blue gowns and caps and remember my own high school graduation like it was yesterday. And I hate saying that because it’s something parents say. And I’m not one of “them”. And yet I find myself thinking it, because in fact I actually am one of “them”.

Is this how my parents felt too? This is all so strange.

I turn to them and ask, right there on our aluminum stadium bench at twilight:

Is this how you felt about me?

Is this how the story of life goes?

With us all thinking we’re still the same young people who set out from high school, vibrant and filled with hope for all the greatness that would be ahead. That no matter our chronological age, we still feel somewhat the same on the inside. Yet, as parents, our kids look at us like we’re old and out of touch, nothing like them and unable to relate?

Is it actually true, we never change that much on the inside at all?

They smile wide and give each other that I-knew-this-moment-would-come look, as if they’d been waiting twenty years for their own child to finally “get it”. And in the look they give, I know it’s true.

It’s as if I just joined a secret club for all the enlightened children-turned-parents, who finally understand the other side.

How had I missed this all these years?

Why hadn’t they filled me in?

All this time we’ve been the same. It’s just my own eyes that couldn’t see.

Sometimes we only know something by doing. And experience is the only way to see. [Tweet that]

Because we can be told.

The concept can be explained to us.

But there’s a handicap of youth that obscures our view—a feeling of insurmountability we never imagine fading. But time is no respecter of persons. And it has a way of teaching us lessons we never even knew we needed to learn.

I smile back at my mom and dad, knowing I’ve been christened into this child-turned-parent club. I see it now more than ever before—at least I’m beginning to understand.

But now the challenge is the waiting. To sit in this club and wait, where parents stay for decades, waiting and hoping their own children “get it” too.

The truth is, although our bodies look different now than they did at eighteen, inside we really are the same people we were then, who really can relate to our children. And not only can we relate, but we get to do so with added benefits now:

The gift of a broader perspective,

Wisdom we’ve gained from our failure along the way,

And a compassion that allows us to give grace to these children of ours who are walking behind us.

I brace myself to accept the fact that they won’t see it. Not for years. And I’m sure the smiles on my parent’s faces have been long in the coming as they’ve waited decades for me reach this epiphany.

And so the turn of the years goes–one generation to the next, the rotation moving through each generation, but never-changing.

And I sigh deep to realize it, and to finally see the view.

We arrive home to celebrate, and I hug my oldest tightly, congratulating him for his accomplishment. And my kindergartener crawls up on my lap as we all chat between bites of strawberry shortcake and whipped cream, about the fun they’ve had and all that lies ahead.

And I purpose to make a note in my heart to see the gift of each new day.

To shift my perspective and remember how next year’s first-grade drudgery-days, will so soon become the years that have sped by.

And I don’t want to miss one moment of them while I wait.

If you’re a parent, what milestone changed your view?

Was it an epiphany for you too?

Continuing on in the counting of 1,000 gifts and beyond with Ann, and her beautiful community.

And why not take the #Joy Dare and join us in counting gifts wherever you are??

Pictures of peonies

Listening to Dad tell stories

Husband writing mud songs

Baseball championship games

“None But Jesus”

Online classes

New Phone Plans

Podcasting Tutorials

50th Anniversary plans

Blue shimmering pool

Water cascading over the ledge

Ripening Boysenberries

Low Full Moon

Skype

Cold Ice Water

Wisdom given generously

#jesusproject verses {Part 1}

James Chapter 1:1-22

*Linking with Laura and Jennifer

Related posts:

For When We Need to Keep Pressing On Seeing the Gifts in the Mess What I Learned {September 2013}