Yesterday was perfect. And the weather was the most perfect spring day yet.
I had all four of my parents here in my house to start the day, and everyone was just so happy and proud of Thomas that they were all fun to be around. Actually, since the divorce was over 40 years ago, and my 'bios' have been each married to my 'steps' for almost that long, they've been all getting along for quite some time.
At 11:30 we went to my friends' house for a graduation brunch. Their daughter was one of the four girls graduating with Thomas. In fact, if we'd had a valedictorian, she'd have been it. She's an amazing young woman, accepted to several schools, receiving several scholarships, and choosing Wharton School of Business at UPenn to attend. She's also a volunteer, been dual enrolled at the community college and has already earned 40 hours of college credit there, is sweet and lovable, ambitious, and beautiful. (She was my son Mat's first girlfriend. In a lot of ways she would have been perfect for him, too, but not good for him in a few important ways. Anyways, I digress.) After the eating and socializing, she and her folks both said a few things, thanking people, etc. So, I started crying even before getting to graduation!
When we got to the community center, the place was decorated to the nines. All done up in school colors and, with pictures and posters of the grads, just lovely. And each grad had a table to display things like award certificates, or slide shows of the grad on laptop, or whatever, plus a Wishbowl. The wishbowl is a simply fabulous idea that a mom came up with last year and had at her grad's party. You leave a bunch of small pieces of paper in front of the decorated bowl, and people can write a small wish or piece of advice on one and drop it in the bowl, signed or unsigned. The director of our school also have everyone's framed diploma there, and a scrapbook for each of them with pictures from school events from way back when they first started in the school. She did this for my older son the year he graduated too. It is a phenomenal gift, and the perfect example of both what a giving person and an involved educator she is.
The ceremony itself was half serious, and part funny (more than a few not-as-planned moments, but in an atmosphere that made things that probably would have been "terrible" at a formal graduation just another bit of fun and closeness.). Each family had a time to get up and do whatever they wanted, like tell what the grad had accomplished and was off to do next, thank people, etc. I made a very short speech, along those lines, and then Thomas played two pieces on the violin, as his way of both showing off, and thanking people, since everyone there knew that there was no way in hell that our sweet Aspie was going to Speak to a crowd, even if they all were either people who knew and loved him, or people related to friends and loved ones. They all received fake diploma rolls (ooh -- just like a public school graduation!) and pictures were made. Then we presented our director with a Cracker Barrel rocking chair. She has monthly breakfasts with a couple of us with older children and we knew how much she'd admired them. We also told her that we had to give her a chair because we never saw her sit. She had almost made it through the whole ceremony, but that made her cry.
Afterwards, we moved from the gym to the conference room and had a party. Cakes, fruits, veggies, nuts, sodas, chitchat, pictures, more hugs and congrats, a good time was had by all.
We went home (both sets of grandparents got back on the road to go home) to relax and open all the cards and gifts that people had left on Thomas's table. He has a ton of Thank-You cards to write.
And the sunset was was so gorgeous it was like another present.
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