Graduations and funerals...

O MY STARS.....Today is graduation day!!!! Today I have 3 exercise classes at the Northeast Arkansas Training Innovative Training Center (the building across from NAPA!)! Today I have 2 graduation parties to attend! Today I have to work. Today I have to go to visitation at the funeral home for the father of a high school friend. Talk about an emotional rollercoaster! We as parents have preached, we have taught, and we have prayed for this day, Graduation Day! When it arrives it is bittersweet. Three of my friends have their last child graduating from High School. I don't know if you can fully grasp what this means to a woman, not only is your child going to start a new phase of their life but so are you. For over 18 years, more if you have more than one child and your youngest is graduating, we have been room mothers, baked brownies for FTA basketball games, helped with science projects, went to football games 3 hours away, held poster parties at our house, planned senior parties, attended field trips, used our sick days because our children needed to go to the doctor, dye Easter eggs, paint pumpkins, the list is endless of the things we as mothers have done to prepare for this night. NOW WHAT??? Do we even remember our name? For years I have been BK's mom or Brant's mom and after Brantley graduated I felt I wasn't anyone's mom. Panic starts to set in..."Did I teach him all the things he needs to know?" The "guilties" set in and you wish you could have been a stay home mommy, you wish you would have colored more with them and played more board games. You wish you would have done things differently, better. "Now what do I do?" I remember the first time I went to the movies on a "School Night". Can I really go to the movies on a school night? Can I really go to Wal-Mart at 10:00 pm? You will find yourself reaching for the telephone to call your children to tell them that you are running to Paragould, only to remember that they are living 3 hours away! Slowly, very slowly you will adjust; you will remember what it was like to have your own life!! AND IT IS PRETTY COOL! There are days when the frost is in the air, and the wind is crisp, the sky is cornflower blue and you know at 7:30 p.m. the stadium lights will be turned on and you will wish for those days back, those days when you could make everything better for your son or your daughter. You never ever stop being the mommy or daddy and you never ever stop needing your mommy and daddy.

So on this big night for three of my friends, I have two other friends that have to stand beside their daddy, in a casket. How do you do that? How do you let go of your daddy? He has been sick for awhile but it is still your daddy. When anyone is mean to you, when you have a bad day, when you need someone to tell you how wonderful you are and how beautiful you are, you go to daddy. Who will do that for my friends now? You need something fixed? Daddy. You need advice on anything..everything. Daddy! Isn't strange, we just went from our lives being tightly wrapped around our children and now they are graduating to being a needy child ourselves and wishing that our daddy could make all the bad go away, just like he did when he scared the monsters away that lived under your bed. I don't ever remember thinking that my mom and dad needed me, just that I needed them!

So on this May day filled with graduations and funerals, hug the ones you love. Tell them you love them. Tell them you are proud of them. Tell them THANK YOU and kiss them, because like the saying goes.."Today IS the first day of the rest of your life." What are you going to do with your first day?