Commencement

Today Suzanne graduates from college. Family and friends have gathered to wish her well, to celebrate her achievement and to send her off into this new time of her life. A phrase from the baccalaureate yesterday stays with me: We are who we are because we were here together.

I think about my own college friends — one of them my husband!— and how I treasure them more every year. I think also about my own college graduation. Once my parents arrived it was the beginning of the end.

Suzanne said as much to us yesterday. The real Wooster, the Wooster that has been changing and sustaining here these last four years — that ended a few days ago. So this weekend has been a long goodbye to the campus and the way of life she had here; to friends who (though she will stay close to many) will not be here, in this particular composition, again.

For us it is a goodbye to a place that seems tucked away in time and space. While Suzanne will undoubtedly return here we most likely never will. As of today, she is an alumna. We are just “the parents of.”

Due to the rain and cold, graduation exercises will be in the gym today instead of the oak grove. But the azalea and lilacs are thriving, the rain will soon give way to sun and fresh-washed air, and this place is filled with exuberance of lives that are just beginning. It is a happy, happy day.

(The girls four years ago, after Suzanne's high school baccalaureate.)