I feel for the class of 2020 because of COVID-19's effect on graduations. I've been on the fence of whether or not to share my graduation story. Partly since I'm still processing it; partly since it seems trifling and avoidable compared to class of 2020's situation. I see now that I was fortunate to have had a ceremony, even if it wasn't the one I had envisioned. But I also feel some of the things I have learned may come in useful to others.
The barber who gave me a haircut before the ceremony asked me if it was for some occasion. I don't know why but I told him "family photos." When he asked where, (not sure why again) but I lied and blurted out the first photography shop that came to mind. Think he might have called me out on my bluff because he said he knew the owner. I must have changed the subject, because I don't recall what was said after that.
I deferred inviting people to the ceremony until the last minute because I worried about one grade in particular. It was a class I had taken at another school, NMT. When I took the final the first time, I was so distracted I left my textbook under my chair in the classroom! (I had arrived early to review the material.) I had come close to graduating from NMT in 2012, but I transferred to UNM when I didn't make the grade on those last classes. I worried I might have to retake that one class over too.
Because of the short notice, not much family was able to make it. Some had already made plans. Others were working in businesses where they could not take time off so abruptly so close to the holidays. The attendees were my parents and my mom's parents.
I planned transportation to the ceremony in a similar hurried manner. I knew I would have a lot on my mind, so I wanted to ride with someone. Mom had errands to run and Dad wanted to drive with Mom when she got back, so since I needed to be at the venue early, I drove over alone. The drive went well, but I took off my mortarboard beforehand so the tassel wouldn't distract me.
I made it to the event in good time, though crowds were starting to form. Preparations like names and seating instructions were on tables sorted by department overlooking the stadium. I had trouble finding my table in the hubbub, even after asking for directions. Seems like I found my major Mathematics at the School of Fine Arts table. (I was mostly scanning tables for my name. When I couldn't find it, I talked with the lady at my table and she fixed a name tag up for me.)
From there graduates sat on stands encircling the stadium, opposite where the audience would sit. I thought about stopping by a bathroom to adjust my mortarboard in front of a mirror. But after a quick search for one and afraid of missing something important, I decided to go directly to the stands. I saw a group of 3-4 people I knew from my math classes and thought about joining them, but decided against it because I didn't know them very well.
It was also in the stands that I got a text message from someone I'd hoped would be able to make it, apologizing for not being able to. The lady sitting next to me was friendly and seemed to pick up on my disappointment. We chatted about work and our plans for the future (hers was "Wherever the wind may take me"), but we were separated as we went down to the stadium.
The speaker was upbeat and motivational, but every time he mentioned family I thought about my relatives who weren't able to make it.
I had put my mortarboard on absentmindedly in the stands. If I'd been resourceful, I could have used my phone camera as a mirror. Or even easier, I could have asked the lady sitting next to me. As it was, my cap was on crooked when I made the walk. A fellow on the sidelines pulled at my tassel to try to fix it, but I smiled at him goofily, thinking he was horsing around, and he gave up, probably thinking that's the way I'd wanted the hat to be.
When I'd imagined graduating, I pictured pumping my diploma or holding it over my head. The diploma itself came later in the mail, but I don't remember if I had the folder it would go into during the ceremony.
As far as I know, these sample photos are the only pictures of my graduation. (It was getting late when the ceremony was over, and I left as soon as it finished to stay ahead of the crowds.) I showed them to my mom's mom, but I don't know if she ordered any. I kept the gown and hat with the intention of taking more photos, but haven't gotten around to it yet.
My younger brother felt bad about missing the ceremony and as a present gave me Bruce Lee movies, which we watched together on Netflix while I was finishing up my degree. I don't think I had known that Mom made it to the ceremony until she talked to me about it right after. (If I remember correctly, she was still on errands when Dad drove over.)
When people (at work, especially) would ask if I graduated, I would answer with vagaries like "I think so" or "I'm not sure." I couldn't believe that it was over! It had happened! Seems like the last grade hadn't come in until after the ceremony, and I had hoped that it would be a failing grade, so I could do it all over, now that I knew what to expect. I felt the way Abraham must have felt in Chariots of Fire when he said, "I'm almost afraid to win."
It was upsetting that things didn't go as I had planned or hoped. Some things that helped me come to terms with it:
- Things going wrong can reveal our true priorities to us. A graduation ceremony didn't mean as much to me if there weren't friends or family there to share it with. How am I to get the outcome I want if I don't have the right priorities?
- The ceremony was the means, an inspiration or driver to the end. But I also received a good education, which was the end itself
"I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all. Moreover, no one knows when their hour will come: As fish are caught in a cruel net, or birds are taken in a snare, so people are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them." -- Ecclesiastes 9:11-12 (NIV)
"There is a scene in Arthur Miller's play Incident at Vichy in which an upper-middle-class professional man appears before the Nazi authority that has occupied his town and shows his credentials: his university degrees, his letters of reference from prominent citizens, and so on. The Nazi asks him, 'Is that everything you have?' The man nods. The Nazi throws it all in the wastebasket and tells him: 'Good, now you have nothing.' The man, whose self-esteem had always depended on the respect of others, is emotionally destroyed. Frankl would have argued that we are never left with nothing as long as we retain the freedom to choose how we will respond." -- Harold S. Kushner in his Foreward to "Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl
"For Stilbo, after his country was captured and his children and his wife lost, as he emerged from the general desolation alone and yet happy, spoke as follows to Demetrius, called Sacker of Cities because of the destruction he brought upon them, in answer to the question whether he had lost anything: 'I have all my goods with me!' There is a brave and stout-hearted man for you! The enemy conquered, but Stilbo conquered his conqueror. 'I have lost nothing!' Aye, he forced Demetrius to wonder whether he himself had conquered after all. 'My goods are all with me!' In other words, he deemed nothing that might be taken from him to be a good. We marvel at certain animals because they can pass through fire and suffer no bodily harm; but how much more marvelous is a man who has marched forth unhurt and unscathed through fire and sword and devastation! Do you understand now how much easier it is to conquer a whole tribe than to conquer one man?" Seneca, "Letter IX: On Philosophy and Friendship," Letters from a Stoic
"'Why do you complain to [God] that he answers none of man's words? For God does speak -- now one way, now another -- though man may not perceive it. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on men as they slumber in their beds, he may speak in their ears and terrify them with warnings, to turn man from wrongdoing and keep him from pride, to preserve his soul from the pit, his life from perishing by the sword....'" -- Job 33:13-18
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