angela's blog: Pomp and Circumstance 2006

Graduation is upon us. Again. Every May it rolls around. And there are 5 people in particular that I can think of to congratulate. First, my little man Dylan. He's graduating from preschool and heading off into the big boy grown up world of kindergarten. I know he's going to be great and JJ and I love him very much. Congratulations Dylan! We wish we could come to the ceremony! My cousin Jennifer is graduating from the University of Colorado - Boulder this weekend. I haven't seen her in years, we think maybe 10, at least 5 or 6, and I talked to her for the first time this week in a long long time. It's hard to imagine that the girl who used to drive me a little crazy but was lots of fun to hang out with when I was 10, the one who used to pinch me in the back of my dad's van when we were 7 or 8, is graduating from college. Congratulations Jennifer! My best friend from high school, Sarah, is graduating from law school next week. She will be Sarah Cox, J.D. She's graduating from the University of Califorina - Davis Law School and Sarah and I have been friends for 10 years. I remember when we graduated from high school and then a couple of months later we got our IB scores. We miscalculated the time difference between here and Switzerland (where they were posting the scores) so I was an hour early meeting Sarah at her house. We got back in bed and waited for the scores to post. I can't remember our actual scores anymore, but I remember being SO excited because both of us got our IB diplomas! And now Sarah is going to be a lawyer! I won't be there to climb in bed and wait for the results of the bar with her ... but I know she's gonna do great. And finally, some of my very good friends are graduating this weekend from the University of North Carolina Medical School. Congratulations to the new Dr. Jennifer Check, M.D. and Dr. Sarah Ralston, M.D. Your journeys through medical school have inspired the rest of us to aspire to become greater. You took your desires to help those in need and turned them into dreams come true. Both of you have the greatest hearts and spirits I could ever hope to have the pleasure to know. I'm so glad both of you are staying because I would miss you terribly. Congratulations to all the graduates ... I feel like perhaps the most appropriate thing to put here is a quote from one of my father-in-law's books. In the prologue to his second book, Chances and Choices, my father-in-law talks about how life is a series of choices, but that life is also a series of chances. It's a great passage to think about every time you start something new in your life. At least I think so. It reminds me that even if I make the right choices, I always need help from some perfectly placed chance happenings. (I'll point out that this maybe doesn't apply to my man Dylan since's he's only 4, but for the rest of you ...). I'll let him say it. From the lips of the eloquent Jackie K. Cooper: When we look back at where we have been we see that in some instances we were in the right place at the right time. And in some instances we were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Life takes twists and turns that we all try to control but sometimes can't. We are set off down a road that has many pitfalls and brambles to make our way through. Or just when we think we can't plod through the muck and mire another moment the sun comes out and dries the road and makes it passable once more. If we could see the future we would make all the right choices, but we don't. That is why chance is so important. Things that we do are like ripples in a stream. They span out and touch the shore of other people's lives. Whether it be by choice or chance these things do happen. We do cause other lives to alter directions and move in different ways. That is what makes life so great - the not knowing. So congratulations to Dr. Sarah and Dr. Jen, Sarah Cox, J.D., and to Jennifer. And to the thousands of proud graduates all across the country, I hope that as you start your careers, or whatever it is that you choose to do next, that your life will be filled with great chances and choices. Love, Me