Today is Saint Patrick’s Day.
A little while ago, I went for a walk into town. I passed by an Irish pub whose entrance was decked out in glittery, green, oversized shamrocks. Its windows, however, were dark and its doors were closed and locked, and bore a note to patrons apologizing for the temporary, but necessary closure.
With growing intensity in recent days, authorities at all levels have been urging (and in some cases, requiring) residents to take measures to flatten the growing upward curve of infections caused by the novel Coronavirus that’s sneaking about the globe, hitching rides from human to human in the cells of our bodies.
The implications of the virus’ presence make themselves apparent bit by bit. How new behaviors and mandates will change our lives becomes apparent in stages, and life as we know and expect it becomes gradually unknown and unexpected. So it was when my sister heavy-heartedly shared with me the news of potential cancellations for her daughter.
My niece is a high school senior. She’s lived in the same town since her preschool years, and with her peers has grown up, advancing to a new school grade each September. Each fall, she’s undoubtedly felt that twinge of anxiety every year, wondering if she’ll be ready to take on the new challenges advancement brings, and inevitably she’s mastered (most!) challenges school has presented her. She’s grown, learned, matured, and developed into a twelfth grader. She’s earned the place where she is, now, on the cusp of a significant transition:
Graduation.
And… it seems this year, that it might be cancelled.
My niece and all the Class of 2020 kids across the country (and beyond!) have casually and reliably spent six-hour days, Monday through Friday, in bustling high schools. They’ve navigated class schedules, peer relationships, teacher relationships, and managed subjects and scores of homework assignments. They’ve traveled to and from school for hundreds of days, and known the lunchroom, classrooms, and hallways intimately as their brains and hearts have developed with ideas, experiences, and emotions. They’ve done all this with the assumed expectation, that like all the years that preceded theirs, and all that will come after theirs, their accomplishments will be acknowledged with a graduation ceremony.
Graduation and all it stands for is part of our collective psyche. That’s why it’s a featured dramatic event in so many (especially American!) movies. It bounds the world of the teenager. Before you graduate, you’re still a high schooler; afterwards, you’re a high school grad. Before, you have no degree; after, you have the minimum qualification for certain jobs, and can list this on your resume. Before graduating, you’re still a kid in many ways; after graduating, more independence and initiative is expected of you. Graduation brings with it both a sense of greater freedom, but also weightier responsibility.
I remember my high school graduation. I remember the dress I wore and how my mortar board was made of foam so that when I chucked it skyward with my classmates at the appointed time, no one risked getting wounded. I remember the little gold ‘85 (my year) on my tassel. I remember that my grandfather (who would die about seven months later) attended. I remember our graduation speaker.
The “package” of distinctive graduation elements affects us all on a deep level. There’s the “costume” of the cap and gown in school hues, and the colorful cords symbolizing academic honors. There’s the inspiring speaker. And, of course, the procession of graduates, accompanied, as ever, by “Pomp and Circumstance,” the mere thought of which makes the heart swell with pride and the eyes well with tears, to imagine the accomplishment our beloved graduates have rightly earned, to be among this crowd, at this time, for this occasion.
I respect the wisdom that we, such social creatures, must collectively keep all kinds of distance from one another for the time being. But, I sure hope that the decision-makers won’t lose sight of the significance of graduation: in all that it is, means, and does -- for the psyches of the graduates, their teachers, friends, and families. I hope its weightiness will motivate their creativity, so that they find ways to uphold its essence with integrity. When this virus abates, I hope we’ll prioritize precious traditions that hold such meaning for so many. Let’s do all we can to create for our graduates - if only for one day - that amazing moment where tangles of thoughts and emotions are so alive and concentrated that the heart and mind can’t really contain it all, but where everything seems possible.
Because that’s what their lives are worth.