Commencement

Today, my youngest daughter graduates from high school.  You know her, Katie Elder.  Everyone knows and loves Katie.  And I wanted so much to talk about the woman she has become but it just seems that I prefer to talk about graduating.

On this same date, 40 years ago exactly, it was a Friday as well, I graduated from high school.  My life was so much different than Katie’s, but not.  I had two loving parents, I had an older sister and a younger brother (Katie has 2 brothers and a sister), I was super involved in high school, and I was so proud of myself.  Graduating from high school was a big deal then.  Not everyone did it.  In fact, my dad never graduated.  He quit school when he was 16 and got a job.  He used to say that he quit because he knew more than the teachers did and then he realized that he didn’t.  He always made light of it.  But I knew that the minute I walked across the stage at graduation was one of the happiest times of his life.  My life was different from Katie’s in that, at that point in my life, my dad had less than a year to live.  He had gotten permission to come out of the hospital, where he was suffering from kidney failure, in order to attend my graduation.  He had been pushed into Memorial Auditorium in downtown Louisville in a wheelchair.  The man I looked up to more than anyone was down.  But not that night.  That night his smile couldn’t have been any more bright.  That night another of his dreams had come true.  That night I received my diploma.

And, as a mother, I am so very proud of Katie, and her accomplishments.  But my life had been different.  My mother had insisted that my brother and sister and I receive a Catholic education.  She went to work part time, and then full time, to afford the tuitions of Catholic schools.  Back then they weren’t cheap.  Now they are even less so.  But living where I do I had to come to grips with the fact that Catholic schools were not an option in high school for my kids.  That doesn’t mean that they didn’t receive a phenomenal Catholic education.  We have been blessed to have been part of three different churches, a Catholic elementary school, and wonderful Catholic teachers, who have helped to raise my children in our Church.  I do hate to brag, but I give the bulk of the credit to her Catholic education to me and her dad.  You see, being involved in church wasn’t an option.  Not going to church wasn’t an option.  All of my children were altar servers, some for longer than others.  They have lectored, they have been Eucharistic ministers, they have sung.  They have been involved with retreats and camps and other things like that.  They know their faith, probably better than I did at their age and at that time I had been in Catholic schools for 12 years.  My mother would be so very proud of the Catholics that these kids have become.  Even though I was raised in Catholic schools I credit my faith with my parents.  Even though I was taught by nuns, I learned more about who I was as a Catholic Christian than I ever learned in a classroom.  And that’s the way it’s supposed to be.  But I will tell you that I had some great help with my kids, as Catholics.  So I will thank all of those teachers, especially Mrs. Wilson and Ms. Schade and Mrs. Tyler.  They knew how important it was.

And when the festivities of 40 years ago were over then the party began.  My mother had everyone back to the house and we ate and drank and I got a ton of presents.  I’m not sure that’s the way it will be for Katie but there will be parties, and family and friends.  That is one thing in her life that I’m very proud of.  We have good friends, and family.  She has learned to be a good friend and does have good friends.  I can remember that my mother bought Little Millers for my graduation party, and Cold Duck Champagne.  She let me drink.  Then I went out with some friends, and they had more to drink.  I had never had more than a sip before.  But I drank Little Millers, and I drank Cold Duck, and I drank some horrid whiskey.  And I passed out.  I told everyone that I had just gone to sleep.  They said I passed out.  When they brought me home they told me that when I went to bed and the room started spinning that I needed to put my foot on the floor, that it would keep the room from spinning.  I got out of the car and got sick all over the driveway.  It was horrid.  Then, when I went to lie down in my parent’s bed (remember Daddy was at the hospital), I asked my friend Beth what I was supposed to do when the room was spinning (I had suckered her into spending the night).  She told me to put my foot on the floor.  I will tell you that did not work.  But I was up and at ‘em early the next morning hosing off the driveway from where I got sick.  And I made a huge breakfast for Beth.  I felt fine.  I don’t remember how she felt.  I have never touched Cold Duck again in my entire life.

I know that Katie will party.  She’s a partier.  No, she’s the life of the party.  I’m not sure if she’ll drink.  But she’s getting ready to go away to college, so who am I kidding?  Of course she’ll drink.  And I don’t think it will bother me one minute if she gets sick or the room spins.  She’s got to learn that.  Now if she does that every weekend I’ll have an issue with it.  But if she does it and learns that she never wants to feel that way again, then I’m okay with that.

Katie is my third child to graduate from high school.  I’ve told people, three down, one to go.    Twenty years ago, on this the third Friday of May, I married her daddy.  When we married I already had two children.  I asked him if he wanted children.  He asked me if I wanted any more.  I told him that I didn’t care one way or another, but that was a lie.  I wanted more.  I wanted at least one more and maybe three more.  I was so blessed the day that Katie was born.  I was so proud that I had made Jimmy a father.  He had already been a father figure to so many kids, but to give him his own was such a blessing to me.  This week, after celebrating our 20th anniversary, I asked him if he could have imagined those twenty years ago what our life was going to be like, and that we would spend our anniversary watching our daughter graduate from high school.  He said that it doesn’t seem real.  But it has been real.  There have been some hard times, there have been some really good times.  We are so fortunate to even be here for her graduation, and that we are healthy.

But more than that, we are so blessed to have four children who have been raised the way they have, and have turned out right.  We are so blessed that when Jay was graduating from high school, Katie was graduating from kindergarten.  We are blessed that Jay and Carilynn were so good with Katie and John.  I used to love it when we were out shopping and one of the little kids was hanging all over Jay or Carilynn and they made sure we took them because they didn’t want people to think that those little kids belonged to them.  The best form of birth control is to put a baby seat in your 16 year old’s car.  It was his job to take them to the sitter every day and pick them up.  Yeah, that kept girls away.  But when I see how much they truly love each other, that if Jimmy and I were nowhere around, they would want to be together, then I know that whatever we did, was right.  And don’t ask me what we did because I don’t have a clue.  But these four people are going to have a lot to offer to this world and I can’t wait to see it all.

So, on this night of commencement, I applaud you Katie Elder.  I applaud the woman you have become and I applaud the woman you are yet to become.  I can’t wait to see what life has in store for you.  But I also applaud all of the people in your life.  Because one thing I do know about getting you to this point, you didn’t do it by yourself.  Your dad and I didn’t do it.  There were a lot of people involved in the woman you have become, and I thank them from the bottom of my heart.

I love you, baby girl, a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck.  And that’s the most.  Onto the next!