Eldest Graduates From College

Today, Eldest graduates from college. Like all major life events, this gives me pause to remember. I remember the morning my wife’s water broke. It was July 1st and she wasn’t due until August 4^th. It was four weeks before the due date and we were both concerned.

It shouldn’t have surprised me that my wife went into labor early. She is early to everything, she comes from a long line of women who are early to everything.

I called the doctor’s office, which was closed, and was given the number for the on-call answering service. I called the number and the man on the other side asked his scripted questions. “What is her due date? How far apart are her contractions?” and so on.

When I told him her contractions were many minutes apart, he asked if this was our first child. It was. He told me to call back when the contractions were two minutes apart.

I wanted to reach through the phone, grab him by the neck, and shake him, but I did not.

Instead, I took a deep breath and said, “Let me start again; my wife is due August 4^th.” And then I stopped. There was a long silence on the line and suddenly the faceless voice on the line said, “Ooohhh. She is four weeks early!” I could almost hear the panic in his voice as he told me he would page the on call doctor immediately, and if I didn’t hear from the doctor in twenty minutes, I should call back.

Eldest was born the next day. She was healthy and happy. At least I think she was happy. She didn’t say much those first few weeks and months, so I cannot be absolutely sure. In fact, she didn’t say much the first few years. Beloved and I would often have to encourage her to use her words, which she adamantly refused to do.

For most of her time in grade school, middle school, and high school, Eldest wanted to be an engineer. She took all the math and science classes she could. She took classes on electricity and computer aided drawing. And we still had to remind her to use her words.

Today, three years after graduating from high school, Eldest graduates from college. Like her entrance into the world, and in the tradition of her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, who all believe that being on time is late, she is graduating early.

Today, Eldest graduates with a degree, not in math or science, but English. Apparently, all those years of admonishing her to use her words stuck with her and now she writes—and wow, does she write! (Check her blog out at kaleigh.distaffen.com)

So, Eldest, congratulations on finishing your baccalaureate degree. I am in awe of your quiet strength, your tender wit, and your firmly caring heart. I am proud of you and can’t wait to see what this new chapter in your life brings.

My busy week in review.

It has been a week packed full of activity in my neck of the woods this week. It started with Sunday, as most weeks generally start with Sunday, that part was routine. However, this particular Sunday was also Father’s day. My wife and children greeted me with warmth and announced that I was to enjoy this day. This was good.

I had to work in the afternoon and my coworkers also gave me warm Father’s day greetings. This, I thought, was good. But then I realized that people were probably not wishing me a happy father’s day because of my being an amazing father, but rather because they are all young and I am not and I probably reminded them of their father.  In light of the fact that I only admit to being twenty-five, this is not good.

I would have called my father to send him best wishes for being a father, but he is dead. This is bad.

I thought of less blunt ways to say that and none seemed appropriate. Especially inappropriate is the phrase, “I lost my father.” Car keys, phone numbers, and pens are lost, fathers--not so much. It may be socially acceptable to lose your mind, but not a beloved family member. Fathers do not fall in the cracks of the couch to reappear during spring cleaning. Nor do they dissappear under beds until the search for heavy winter blankets begins. I hope my daughters pay close attention to this admonition, losing your dad is bad.

Monday followed Sunday, which soon turned into Tuesday, which, of course led to Wednesday, also known as Graduation Day. This was due to the fact that Eldest graduated from High School Wednesday evening. I was excited that my daughter invited me, apparently the years of embarrassment that she had suffered from her father were forgiven and she allowed me to attend.

Not wanting to embarrass Eldest on such an auspicious occasion, I read the letter her principle sent home outlining appropriate behavior for family members during the graduation ceremony, which was being held at Rochester Institute of Technology’s (RIT) Gordon Field House. One thing that struck me was the ban on air horns. The letter specifically stated that air horns and other noisemakers would be confiscated by RIT security. The only air horn that I have access to is attached to a bus and I couldn’t figure out how to sneak a bus into the field house so I figured I was safe.

Imagine my horror when I saw an entire horde of young people brazenly carrying in air horns, big banging drum thingies, and all sorts of other noisemakers. I was sure that security was going to swoop down on these rule breakers like a horde of TSA agents on a 3.5-ounce bottle of shampoo.

They were left unmolested and soon the patriarchal figure of those young people stood up with a big stick, which he shook at them. As he shook the stick, they made loud noises with their noisemakers. This continued on for three or four minutes until he finally got tired of shaking his stick and they stopped until the end of the ceremony. At this point the man, having regained his strength, stood up and shook his stick again and his horde made noises.

The next day, Thursday, we had a graduation party for Eldest. I was opposed to this. As much as I love Eldest, I do not see why she deserved a party for sitting in a chair for an hour, standing up, walking across a stage, taking a folder, and shaking a couple of hands. This hardly constituted a reason for celebration and I told Beloved so. She gave me “The Look” and we had the party.