Graduation and Chagrin

best friends

first of all the chagrin. Thursday was the last choir concert of the year.. it was also the last concert of both Maddie and the Choir director who is retiring this year. She asked many alumni to come back and sing one last concert and there was a full house. Our theater holds just shy of 600 people and it was full. Maddie had a small solo which she forgot the words to (Ah well) but other than that it was a very nice program. Afterwards she came running out with her friend and shoved something purple at me. It was my lost bunch of violets. Her friend had seen it sticking out of one of the pipes backstage and asked her "What's This?" Maddie said "Oh my God, my mom has been looking for that forever. She thought someone had stolen it." What a weird coincidence that Maddie's friend found it at last time they will be backstage ever again. I just love coincidences like that

Friday was graduation... I ironed Maddie's gown and sent her off to school for the last time. I wore my little pin that has her baby picture on it and it felt just like we were back sending her off to kindergarten. It was not an easy morning for me. The first person I talked to about it I broke into tears... It got better as the day wore on and by the evening I was just fine.

Puck had to bartend, but found someone to replace him so he could come home early. We got dressed up and I curled her hair. Of course it started raining so we decided to drive the two blocks up to the school. There was a sort of reception for parents. The kids got busy putting on caps and gowns and visited with each other and the parents just wandered aimlessly around, greeted each other occasionally and commented on how fast the years had gone by.

Some lady came in and unlocked a gate and the crowd of parents started moving toward it. Of course we joined the mob and followed like lemmings to the fieldhouse where the ceremonies were being held. I think only the infirm were supposed to go at that time, but we all just followed.

Puck got us some good seats while I went to take some pictures of the Fieldhouse mural. When Maddie was a freshman they had just started a huge mural on the wall of the new fieldhouse representing extracurricular activites and were looking for volunteers to paint it after school. There was a small sketch of a hurdler on the wall and an outline of the track when she started and for two years she worked on it pretty much all alone. Her art teacher took her picture and put her up over the door painting the empire state building, something she had done for Guys and Dolls to represent stage crew and drama. At one time she was painting herself painting something else.

I had wanted to get pictures, but procrastinated. This was my last shot sort of. We got through the graduation just fine and ended up sitting on the right side of the room (actually the left). Puck ran over to get her picture coming off the dias... I didn't go because a professional was taking pictures and I thought they would get a better one than I could take.

She sang for a last time with the choir and played her last song with the band. They gave her a cheer when she went up to get her diploma which made her happy. The speeches were short and the crowd was big... We went off to Culvers for a celebratory ice cream and then home to bed with our little graduate