In the past few weeks, every high school in the province has had one thing in common, graduation exercises for the class of 1996. One day students, the next young adults on their way to the future.
As parents in the audience gaze at their children, the girls with their new, grown-up hair styles and elegant dresses, the boys not quite comfortable in their rented tuxedos, they see, with the inner eye that all parents have, the way they were yesterday, on their first day of school.
They remember taking them by the hand to the kindergarten room, knowing that, going in, their children were all theirs, but once through that door, they would be helping them take their first steps to independence.
Read Also
Late season rainfall creates concern about Prairie crop quality
Praying for rain is being replaced with the hope that rain can stop for harvest. Rainfall in July and early August has been much greater than normal.
Sure enough, soon it was “teacher says this, teacher says that.”
They remember, too, the thoughts that went through their minds as they left their children at the classroom door: they’re too young, where has the time gone, this shouldn’t be happening yet. Strangely enough, or maybe not, the same thoughts have been occurring regularly in the past few weeks, days, moments.
If parents are remembering yesterday when their children started kindergarten, they are also thinking of the day before yesterday when they themselves were graduating from high school, when they were the ones with the whole world before them.
Their children have more than the world; they have the universe. Humans have walked on the moon, this generation will journey to the stars. The sky is no longer the limit to what they can achieve.
The parents feel a touch of envy at how far their children may travel and sadness that they cannot share the whole of the journey with them.
If there are tears in the coming weeks as the children prepare to leave the family home, it is to be hoped that they will be patient. They must understand that the tears will be not just for the ones leaving but also for those staying behind.
Being parents, it would be unthinkable to send offspring into the world without the benefit of pearls of parental wisdom:
- Phone home from wherever you are, even if it is collect.
- Always wear clean underwear.
- Respect your elders.
- It doesn’t cost anything to be polite.
- Eat your vegetables.
- Don’t be one of those people who yells, “ready, fire, aim!”
- Try to react to everything with class.
Will the kids listen?
Sure. About as well as their parents did the day before yesterday.
