Pre-graduation

Friday afternoon I left the law office on my bike with a graduation card in my purse. I was accompanied by a heavy summer thunderstorm. Biking along the river and under bridges gushing runoffs from the streets felt like being on an amusement park water ride. But I had to go no matter what - I had my university graduation rehearsal to attend.

All ten thousand of the 2010 graduates were emailed and instructed to gather at French Field House (across the street from the stadium) at 1 p.m. Around 12:30 I locked up my bike and waddled wetly into the open garage door of the indoor track field. I wrung rain water from my french braid as it dripped from the cuffs of my jean capris. A few hundred people had begun to gather by the frail 8-foot-tall markers denoting fields of study.

After some confusion with where my fellow journalism majors were (College of Behavioral and Social Sciences) and what color my tassel needed to be (maroon), I spent the next hour swathed in hangover-breath while eavesdropping on Senior Crawl stories. I could smell the whiskey on the guy's breath two spots behind me whenever he talked.

After a sexless voice came on a loudspeaker and spoke as clearly as Charlie Brown's teacher, the name of the game became to follow the butt in front of you. Thankfully, #1003 wore a red flower-print dress that was easy to spot while half-jogging out of the building in a group of people 8 columns wide.

We had our own traffic blockade as we streamed across Woody Hayes drive. We trotted past the entrance of the stadium in the shadow of the concrete pillars and iron gates, mindless ants in a huge colony. The foot traffic slowed at a gate marked "GRADUATES ONLY" as the columns funneled down smoothly into four bodies wide. The post-storm humidity was choking. There were choruses of complaints, even in our barest summer clothes, during the 20-minute run-through. There were lots of jokes about going naked under our robes on Sunday.

This is the majority of the class of 2010. Yes, these are just student, and there were still hundreds more filing into the stadium. This is what happens when you graduate from the largest college in the nation. And tomorrow, the stands will be filled with roughly 3-4 people per graduate - something between 30 and 40,000 people for the ceremony. In a stadium built for +100,000, it will still be positively roomy. However, if it storms too badly tomorrow, the whole bash will be cancelled - there are no nearby venues able to entertain such a host indoors.

The girl I'll be sitting next to - #1008 - has my exact degree: a major in Journalism and a minor in International Studies. I never had a single class with her, not in 3 years of full-time classes. That's something else that happens when you graduate from the largest college in the nation. You don't know anyone, because there's too many people to know.

An announcer, presumably in the cluster of official-looking people on the field, began to drone at the student body. Her enunciated voice was totally ineffectual because of the bounce and echo of the stands. However, we did hear when she announced each college. The medical colleges were tiny whimpers of success, one even having just a single graduate stand and shake his fists. The business college got booed. The engineering college gave a distinctly male whoop. My college - arts and sciences - gave the final roar.

I baked like a potato in the stands, getting a noticeable sunburn in those interminable 20 minutes. The thought of Sunday's three-hour marathon was already unbearable. I was already making a list of things that would reduce my misery for a day forecast to be +80 degrees, rainy, and humid. I rendezvoused with Dave behind the shop he works at, groaning at the thought of those awful black gowns. We knew it was going to be a long weekend.

Dave's parents drove down from Cleveland this morning to help us run some pre-graduation errands, including going out with Eileen to buy ponchos for everyone in the family. I know I drew a lucky card with my in-laws - they are the most generous people I have ever met, and they rained that generosity down on us in absurdly huge ways today. Knowing their admirable modesty, I'll refrain from giving details of their gifts. But I do want to honor them here and thank them for such extreme generosity. Dave and I's quality of life and well-being is greatly bouyed by their love.

Back when Dave and I were engaged, up until a month before our wedding our families had never met. So, in November of 2008, my mom and step-dad came over to my father's house just before Dave's parents drove down from Cleveland. Eileen handed a box of chocolates to my mother, a 6-pack of Great Lakes beer to my step-father, and a bottle of wine to my dad. It was the start of an evening that went magically well, and started our families out very much on the right foot before the big day. That night included a great big barbeque dinner altogether at The Pig Iron, so, Dave's dad wanted to go back and have dinner there tonight, too. I called my family to confirm, and this time we added my dad's new girlfriend and my two siblings to the mix, as well as a very LARGE rack of ribs.


(No, my dad was not able to finish it all by himself.)



The night reminded me of my high school graduation in 2005.

I graduated when the divorce was still a raw sticky gash in my family. And post-ceremony there came the dreaded decision - who will I have dinner with? Who do I have to choose?

Mercifully, unbelievably, everyone in my family went to the same restaurant together. That evening is one of my most precious memories - I sat at the head of the table in my white summer dress and marveled at the interspersement and laughter between the two sides of my family. They had been united by a marriage for 14 years, broken, and were now held together by the children of that marriage. Being that beloved lynchpin was incredible.

And at the dinner table tonight was two sides of a family united by a marriage - my marriage. Here also we've been blessed with a high level of happiness and comfort between his family and mine. It is unreal how much everyone likes each other, and how highly they speak of each other. Knowing the pains of a broken family, the comfortable unity is a staggering gift.

Tomorrow, they'll all be there, sitting on metal bleachers for four hours or more, in the rain and humidity and boredom of our no-name keynote speaker. They'll be lucky to catch more than a glimpse of us with their binoculars from across the stadium in a sea of ten thousand black robes. Our names won't be announced as we receive our diplomas; we will shake hands with the proper university dignitaries, receive our diplomas with our left hand, and whether we have the right diploma or not just keep on walking off the field and into post-graduate freedom. And as we leave college behind, our families will be on the other side to celebrate with us.


This is the gate I came out of after rehearsal. This is the path I will walk and the people I'll be leaving college life with.

I am so ready to go.