June is graduation time.  I love graduations. I love reading the programs, watching the kids in their caps and gowns, starched suits, or colorful costumes walk down the aisle, and line up on stage. Depending upon whether it’s a kindergarten graduation, elementary school, high school or college, I just get a thrill about all the pomp and circumstance.

And this year, I have two family graduations to attend. One is my youngest son’s graduation from high school. That one makes me feel old. I am prepared to cry, laugh, and feel really emotional. It’s hard to believe that my “baby” is graduating 12th grade. Wow!

The second graduation that I will be attending next week is that of my grandson. He is completing nursery! I’m so excited to sit in the audience and watch my grandson say his “part” or sing his song. (Actually, I’m convinced he will be valedictorian!)  I may even watch him get shy in front of me, which is something I recall my own kids sometimes doing that back in the days when they graduated.

As I’m writing this, I wonder what it is about graduations (they call them “commencement exercises” – I never understood what they had to do with “exercise” but I digress), and about these boring, drawn out events that gives me a thrill. What about them has me eagerly going early, getting a front seat, and feeling only slightly awkward that I’m the first one there?

I thought about this today and I finally figured it out.

I think it is the non competitive aspect of it. By the time the students have reached graduation, they are all dressed alike, standing in the same group and celebrating together. True, some of them are singled out for awards (am I secretly hoping one of those awardees will be my brilliant progeny?), but that doesn’t change the fact that each of them gets his or her diploma. I find it fascinating to watch all students get the message, “You did it! You’re done!” I think that message is so powerful, that I come back year after year to watch graduates (friends, relatives, and my own students) as they hear that message.

To hear the principal, teachers, and fellow students speak so positively about their achievements might seem so trite and perhaps Pollyanna-ish to some.  And yet,  it is the optimist in me who loves the feeling elicited by those speeches (for the non cynical observer!), the attitude that all is well. The philosophy and the message that the kids have done so well in school by virtue of the fact that they completed their requirements. And now, the future, with all its  possibilities, is laid out in front of them.

It is the optimist  in me who will undoubtedly sit in that audience – during the nursery and high school graduation, thinking about my son – and my grandson – and feel oh so  proud of them and their achievements. It is the Pollyanna in me who will be cheering inwardly, barely resisting the urge to shout out:

Never give up! Yes! You did it!