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| Love this picture of my sister and her family celebrating my niece's graduation. Happy times! |
As I think of these celebrations, and as I get older, the more I feel grateful for the opportunity to celebrate the feats and changes in people's lives. Just yesterday I celebrated my niece's college graduation--a wonderful ceremony drawing our attention to what's important in life. The commencement speaker, Michele Norris, dared us to speak to people who think differently than we do and people who have had different experiences. She also asked us not to quantify our successes with numbers, but by focusing on excellence instead. Those were good messages and the vignettes and life experiences she used to solidify those messages were similarly powerful. Those who received honorary degrees at the graduation exemplified lives of contribution to medicine and history--significant efforts related to choosing a path and exemplifying excellence, outreach, and contribution with their life's work as a cancer doctor and antiquarian society librarian.
With every celebration this season there is much to be grateful for.
I am grateful for my niece's deep study, commitment, and care related to her preparation for college, college study, and related work and contribution. She is the kind of person who will bring our world wonderful gifts in the years ahead, gifts that are strengthened by her strong family and educational foundation.
I am grateful for my son's graduation from high school as he has learned so much and has been the recipient of a holistic K-12 program that empowered him physically, socially, emotionally, and intellectually. He's ready for the next step as a college freshman.
I am grateful for the athletic feats my family members will embark on in the days ahead--feats that will test their training, determination, and skills, and feats that will bring family members together to share in their love of sport.
I am grateful for the end-of-year school celebrations that will mark a year of good teaching and learning for our students, years of targeted teaching and care as our fifth graders move to the next school, and lifetimes of contribution and teaching by many colleagues who will retire or mark milestones in their professional careers.
I am grateful for a week-long celebration of my thirty-year marriage to my husband, Mike at one of our favorite vacation spots. We'll likely celebrate by doing the things we love most like walking on the beach, swimming, riding bikes, beach picnics, and going out to dinner at a beautiful seaside location.
As we all know, life has its high points and low points and lots of in-between day-to-day times of doing our daily work and caring for one another, and as I think of this, I realize that it is very important to celebrate the good times--to make time to stop to acknowledge the accomplishments, relationships, and feats that signify our commitments, contribution, and care.