Our Graduate

 After years of homework, tests, presentations, reports and bus rides ... Leah is a high school graduate!!Wohoo!! 

I remember, all those years ago when Leah started kindergarten, she was put into the "Class of 2024" and thinking how far away that is. So far into the future it was crazy. I might have even turned to Dave and said "can you imagine? I wonder where we'll be?" 

And here we are. Just a blink later. 

At first, I thought of it as an ENDING. It's ending. No more first day of school, waiting for the bus, buying school supplies, picking up backpacks, packing lunches, going to teacher conferences (not that I really ever went), checking on homework -- 12 years of being in this schedule and it's over. I'll never hear that door open and shut at 3pm and hear whatever crazy thing happened at school today. And that made me really sad. I really liked that chapter of our lives and it's closed.  

So I mourned that for a while. 

Then I started thinking of it as a NEW BEGINNING. This is the start of Leah heading out in the world. She's going out of state for college. She'll be on her own. And she's ready. She's been training for this a long time. She's so capable. And I'm so excited to see what she makes of it. What she does next. What she creates. 

So then I got excited because I have a front-row seat. 

Quick story about Leah. We moved to Illinois in December the year Leah was in Kindergarten. Since Winter Break was starting less then a week after we moved in, we decided to hold her first day at her new school until after the New Year. We visited the classroom and met her teacher one day during the break. It was a freezing January morning when Alice and I walked Leah to the bus stop. You'd think she'd be scared or reluctant or hanging on to my hand and not letting go. I know I was nervous. Nope. She meet the new neighbors, and hopped up the bus stairs like she'd been doing this ride everyday for the last four months. She didn't even turn back to us when she got on the bus. Off she went. And I vividly remember thinking in awe, "this kid is going to be ok."  

CONGRATS, LEAH! 

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