Passages

6/1/2004

It's all over except for the ceremony.

Three children have now finished, and nineteen consecutive years of schooling is over.

Last Tuesday in the regional finals the boy threw his last shot-put.

Then on Friday we went out to the county wide meet to watch the last two relay races of his active high school career. It's possible that he will run in the state meet next week, but essentially this was the last meet of the year in which schools were competing against each other.

The state meet will only consist of one race for the boy, and that will signify the end of high school athletics.

We've watched a lot of events over the past eight to ten years, most of them the boy's, although the middle child did play quite a bit of soccer through her sophomore year of high school.

We've watched football, and hockey, and soccer, and track. And through it all, I've been there camera in hand, trying in some cases, with very inadequate equipment, to capture the memory.

Soon the nest will be empty, all three of them off to college, the oldest married and living in Arizona.

We have a busy week planned, short as it is. Prom is tomorrow night (Tuesday), then middle child has a birthday on Wednesday. Thursday is an awards ceremony and then Sunday is graduation. The week I am sure will fly by, and then the shock of it all will hit.

It's over.

It's truly over.

We were told last week that the powers that be were going to have a meeting today about the candidates interviewing for the job in Arizona. We smiled when we were told, because it was obvious that someone was not paying any attention to the calendar, since Monday of this week was Memorial Day.

But who knows, we may still hear.

Meanwhile, I'm a bit dazed by it all.

Now what am I going to do?