Most moments in our lives pass unnoticed, without remark or consciousness.
Then, there are those that mean something, or that we choose to mean something,
that become a placeholder for our lives, to add meaning, understanding, passage
a demarcation that bestows significance
My daughter graduated, under rainy skies and cool breezes.
The white tents in the grass flapped empty and lonely like a cancelled wedding
We sat in a loud gymnasium rather than in the grass quad surrounded by trees
I was there with a thousand other proud parents;
I circled her name in the program. I waited for the moment when it was to be called; being
slightly afraid I'd miss it
And I whistled and yelled, but I don't think quite enough. I didn't seem to mark the moment.
It was a moment, and I knew it, expected it, wanted it to be.
so badly.
Bittersweet. I like that word, it explains life so well.
I like the idea of bittersweet and I wanted to have it envelope me that day.
I tried to hold on to it. Like a good dream that comes too late in the morning and wont be prolonged quite far enough
I wanted to hold on, to understand what it meant. I knew it meant so much,
or, at least, I wanted it too.
I held on to understand what this meant to her.
I held on to remember my own graduation and the dream I then only fainty realized I had just experienced in my four years of college
I held on because I know her next steps take her further away.
I held on to feel what she felt in the mixture of joy, relief, sadness, confusion;
all that goes with parting from friends who alone know the exerience you shared.
I held on to make sense of my life. Making sense of moments makes them meaningful.
I want life to be meaningful
I wish I would have written something that evening. In the full emotion of the day.
I thought about it.
And now, like that dream, it is fading into morning light. I can't remember all that was, or seemed to be, profound and important as I watched my daughter those two days.
I want it to mean something enduring, symbolic and permanent.
I want my life to be important, to reflect a famous quote from someone, to be in granite.
Not so everyone will know it mattered, just so that I will.