A Graduation I Don't Remember: A Mindful Reflection On Parenting Milestones

Graduation is supposed to be about the graduate.

And of course it is.

But it also becomes something else entirely when you’re the parent. And maybe it’s okay to say that out loud.

Graduation, Marquette University, 1995. Me and my mom.

This weekend, we celebrated a milestone. My youngest daughter graduated from college, and we trekked up to Burlington, Vermont — one of the most beautiful places on earth — to watch her walk across that stage.

There were ceremonies and inductions and honorary recognitions, all wonderful and well deserved, while at the same time we were moving years of life out of a downtown apartment near Church Street, remembering the hottest day of the year a few summers ago when we first moved her in.

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And this is where I have to say it. It’s amazing how time flies. It really does. Especially when you have children in your life who suddenly become adults, while somehow you still feel pretty much the same yourself.

So I don’t know about you, but for me, their milestones have a way of pulling up your own stories.

You know the ones.

High school hallways. College campuses. The feeling of leaving home for the first time. First apartments with mismatched furniture. Late-night conversations with friends you were certain you’d know forever. First jobs. First heartbreaks. The combination of freedom, uncertainty, excitement, and fear that comes with so much of life still in front of you.

And what hits hardest is realizing those memories don’t feel far away at all until suddenly they do. And you start doing the math over and over because it just can’t possibly have been that long ago. But somehow, it was.

Throughout the weekend, I found myself thinking a lot about my own college graduation. And I mean really thinking about it, because oddly enough, I can barely touch an actual memory of it.

Truly.

I know I was there — there’s photographic evidence. One picture of me in a cap and gown standing next to my mom.

But I have no memory of crossing the stage, hearing my name called, or really anything else that’s supposed to mark this rite of passage. I’m sure I did it. I must have. But it didn’t leave an imprint, or enough of an imprint to last thirty years, according to the over-and-over math.

And I wonder now if my parents remember it more vividly than I do. I wonder if my mother felt all the things I’m feeling now, standing next to me in that picture, while I was already mentally halfway into whatever came next.

Because I think that’s exactly where I was.

My head was already gone from Wisconsin, thinking about the move, the job, the new city out east, the life waiting ahead of me. Too busy thinking about what was next to fully appreciate what was happening. Too unaware of how quickly these seasons pass.

How fleeting these moments really are.

And yet, watching my daughter graduate, I felt everything.

Immense pride. Heart-swelling love. Admiration. Gratitude. Relief. Hopefulness.

All of it. With an intensity that is anything but forgettable.

And no, it isn’t about me.

But it is, a little bit.

Because yes, this is her moment. Her accomplishment. Her stage to cross. But this is also my experience as a parent.

Maybe that’s what surprised me most this weekend. Not just how proud I was of her, but how deeply I felt the moment myself. More deeply than I think I felt my own graduation.

Which makes me wonder if this is one of the strange gifts of getting older.

Maybe we become more capable of understanding the importance of a moment once we’ve lived enough life to know how quickly it passes.