I am just sitting in the sunshine contemplating the last 21 years of the life with my son. I am watching families from all walks of life, of all different combinations, celebrating. Celebrating their children. Celebrating the success of guiding them to this point, this next chapter in their lives. Their graduation.
When they are babies we can wrap them up in cotton wool, protecting them from almost everything. We can hold them in our arms knowing they are safe and loved. Yet all these years, the first school nativity that I was reminded of today, as I watched him stand on the stage; the move to secondary school; leaving for university; have all been leading to this point where we launch them into the world like arrows as confident, independent individuals in their own right. This is what all those years as a mother have been preparing us for effectively. Secure in the knowledge that those sleepless nights, those worries, those fears, those guilts. Did I do enough? Did I do it right?, were so worth it. These babies come with no instructions. All we can really do is give them our time and our love… unconditionally.
For looking around me today that is the common denominator here. Despite the family dynamic, these graduates are surrounded by love and pride. This is time, to acknowledge that helping to create a confident successful boy who has turned into a man to be proud of is a fabulous achievement.
Today my heart still pattered like it did when he was Joseph in his first nativity as I watched him stand there shaking hands on the stage to his future. As the happy tears welled up, my wish now for his future is that he goes out into the world, generous in what he contributes. For these babies that we nurture, are the future. It is in their hands now to shape a world which is better, more generous more confident. Because if
they don’t no one will.
Our hopes for a better future rest in our graduates. The grade becomes irrelevant. I smile in the sunshine as I contemplate not the grade achieved but the good, generous, wholesome, morally intelligent man my little boy has become.
I am thankful and blessed to been there to help guide him on this journey, this rollercoaster of life and look forward to spectating all his future hopes and dreams.