My daughter graduated from eighth grade last night. Walked across the stage in the high heels she insisted on wearing—did so without tripping, which was just one of her many accomplishments.
She found out yesterday that she made the soccer team she was hoping to make, and that was another highlight as well.
Tomorrow, though, we’ll go to a memorial service, for Katie, a 19-year-old daughter of a family from our church. Her younger sister, a friend of my daughter’s, also graduated last night.
Katie died after she had a brain aneurysm while driving her car last weekend. Thanks to text messaging and cell phones, we heard about the accident right away. My daughter and about 50 other eighth graders gathered in a park in our neighborhood that night to pray, to cry, to process what for them is a highly unusual occurrence. They are all overflowing with emotion anyway. The junior high they attend feeds into two different high schools, and so graduation means saying goodbye to friends they’ve made in the last two years. That was a loss in itself, but to have this even greater tragic loss was overwhelming to them.
When my daughter was little, I wrote down milestones in a journal (I was not very good at the baby book thing). First words, first steps. Now that she’s 14, I don’t do that. But I think I ought to. Here’s the milestone we hit last weekend—Melanie turned to her friends, rather than to me, for comfort of pain. Up until now, she’s mostly run to me when she skinned her knee or struggled. But last weekend, we dropped her and her friends at the park, and stood there for a minute, watching them as they hugged and cried in the dark. She received from and gave comfort to her peers.
As a mom, I want to celebrate these steps. I try to parent with the end in mind—I want her to grow into an emotionally intelligent, independent adult. But sometimes it’s hard to let go. This weekend, she’ll have another first: attending a funeral for someone close to her age—someone she assumed was, like her, invincible simply because of her youth.
So she graduated this week. Took some steps across a stage, and took some huge steps in learning about life, how precious and fragile it is.
5 Comments
Keri, what an emotional week for all of you. A friend of mine died when I was in eighth grade, too. It’s tough. Letting go as a parent is tough, too. Thank goodness we get to do it a step at a time, huh?
Oh man. I’m so sorry. How beautiful, though, that you see her growing up. And she looks like you, you know.
Her friend in the bottom photo is one she’s known since pre-school. the upper photo is of a friend she made this year. She’s amazingly extroverted. And yes, we’ve been told we look a bit alike.
Our children are on loan to us for a short time. When we do our duty and see them grow and flourish in “the way” we feel a sense of accomplishment but we know it was all of God.
I used to teach jr. high. I loved watching them mature and blossom from geeky 7th graders to confident 8th graders at the end of two years. That is such a fun age; they’re truly on the cusp of their great life adventures! Yes, she looks like you!