Graduation season is upon us, the time of year in which communities all across America celebrate the accomplishments of our young adults who will be receiving their high school diplomas.
Graduation is a bittersweet time, marking both an ending and a beginning. For the grads, they will realize that the past four years, which they began as adolescents, are now culminating as they reach adulthood and they will be saying goodbye to their friends, teachers, and mentors who guided them through their high school years.
For the parents, who will be filled with pride as they hear their child’s name called and watch them stride across the podium to receive their diplomas, no doubt the sentiments expressed in a song from Fiddler on the Roof will be in their minds:
Where is the little girl I carried?
Where is the little boy at play?
I don’t remember getting older,
When did they?
All of us, even those who have no direct connection to a graduate, will smile as we see the brightly-colored balloons and other festive decorations that will mark graduation parties in our neighborhoods. We will recall our own high school graduations and think about the happiness and expectations that filled us when we were so much younger.
Today’s graduates are tomorrow’s leaders. We will be counting upon them to make a better world. Let’s hope that we have supplied them with the tools they need to ensure that the problems we are facing today will be overcome by them, both for the sake of their own generation and those before and after.
We offer our heartiest congratulations to our graduates and their families.
ta beta all
ihsmtns