One last look for the graduate
by Julie Carter
It’s that time of year again. Almost daily, my mailbox
brings me a cleverly designed photo card with a scripted invitation to that
giant curve in the road of life – high school graduation.
A card covered with photos that share at a glance 18-years
of the embarking teen’s life. Chubby baby cheeks give way to pre-school
cuteness followed by sports shots, county fair, FFA and then model-perfect
poses of beauty that only a teen can achieve.
At homes everywhere, there is a teen whose head is spinning
with a calendar full of lasts – last prom, last classes, last finals, last high
school rodeo, last look at a school bus twice a day.
Every senior’s mom is sorting clothes, sorting hours in the
day, making lists and more lists. She is filling every corner of her heart with
busy in an effort to make those last high school memories great ones. And
maybe, if she stuffs and pokes and pushes down hard enough, she can ignore, for
a little longer, the tug of loneliness that is trying to take over.
Her baby is leaving home. Her baby isn’t her’s anymore. Her
baby, whether it’s the first one to leave or the last, will never again need
her like he or she has the last 18 years.
That curve in the road of life, isn’t just for the
graduating teen. It’s for the family who has been a unit of a certain size in a
certain way for a certain number of years. Now it will all change.
It might not all happen right after the cap and gowns are returned
and the graduation party is behind them. After all, there is still summer and
plenty to do at home and with assorted activities. But the ticking clock will
seem to pick up speed and volume as June and July slip by to the inevitable
first day of college classes.
If this is the first one to go, it’s horribly hard, as Mom makes
her way through unfamiliar territory, dreading what she can’t see or plan for
ahead. If this is the last one to go, it’s horribly hard as Mom knows the road,
but also knows how it drops off at the end.
Graduation seems to signify some right of passage for a teen
that says, “Okay Mom, I’ve got it handled now.”
Wasn’t it just last week he was checking daily in the mirror
to see if he had enough facial hair to justify shaving, almost willing it go
grow overnight, like that would mean he was a little tougher and more “mature.”
Is this the same kid, who during “the talk,” became
mortified when the word hormone was used because he had it confused with hemorrhoids?
Somehow, a raging hemorrhoid is not a good explanation for much of anything.
Wasn’t it just last week she was wearing frosted bubblegum
lip-gloss, plastic beaded bracelets and wanting her ears pierced? Her firsts
were mascara, Kotex, a bra and trying to figure out just what it was that was
supposed to make thong underwear fun.
Now she has her own car and spends every spare minute
planning her own apartment and a life completely free of her perceptions of her
mother’s nagging. It will be many years before she realizes how much she is
like her mom.
In the meantime, contrary to what graduates think is going
to happen, moms don’t resign their post that easily. Every now and then I have
to show my AARP card to my mother to remind her, “I got it handled, Mom.”
Julie can be reached for comment at jcarternm@live.com.
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