'Tis the Season for Graduation!

The first “graduation” I experienced with my children was when our oldest daughter, Emily, “graduated” from pre-school. It was an alternative pre-school so the word “graduation” was never used, but my goodness, there was certainly enough “ceremony” to go around for the day. Pictures had been taken of each child throughout the year and then each family was given the task of making a “memory” book for a different child than their own from the pictures that had been taken all year. On their last day, what I referrred to as “graduation” day, the memory books were presented to each child. The ceremony was followed by a festive potluck lunch out on the playground. The children were happy and sad all at the same time because many of them were going to different schools for kindergarten so they realized this was their last play time together. For our younger daughter, Anna, it was even more poignant as we moved from one town to a different town when she finished pre-school. She knew she wouldn’t see any of her pre-school friends in her new school.
The “graduation” scene happened again in 5th grade since middle school is 6th-8th grades. When they left the 5th grade, the school had a long graduation program with speeches and certificates and the whole nine yards. Of course when they graduated from 8th grade it was an even longer program with more speeches and music and speeches from an adult and an even larger party afterward. Honestly, by the time our older daughter graduated from high school last year, it was a bit anti-climactic. Or was it that she was just so glad to have survived high school and be moving on to where people might care more about your thoughts on global warming than your thoughts on the latest fashions?
Surprisingly enough, I am not one of the parents who think graduations at every level are ridiculous and should be banned. On the contrary, I am a lover of ritual so I have always appreciated the ritual that accompanies each and every transition in our daughters’ lives. Okay, maybe I didn’t fully appreciate the 6 speeches in 5th grade in two languages, but the overall ritual I did appreciate!
In our North American anglo culture, we do a lousy job of acknowledging the major transition times in our lives. Other cultures are much more intentional than we are about ritual at various times in one’s life span. Rituals are a way to invite people into a deeper experience of an ordinary occurrence. A ritual can also engender reflection on a particular time in one’s life such as a quincinera or a graduation or a bar mitzvah.
Long after we graduate from a school of one kind or another, we continue to go through significant transitions. How can we develop rituals that both celebrate and mourn the transition (similar to a graduation that celebrates the accomplishment of the past and acknowledges the moving on to the future)? How about rituals for divorce which some traditions are doing? How about rituals for children leaving home? How about rituals for entering and finishing menopause (one of the wildest journeys in a woman’s life!)? How about rituals for becoming grandparents? How about rituals for changes in health? How about rituals for moving from one’s “home” to a new place for living out the rest of one’s days?
Our lives are constantly changing and I believe we would help ourselves and others cope and adapt more readily if we would develop intentional rituals to help the community surround the one who is experiencing the changes. One of the most meaningful rituals I have ever participated in was on a Sunday morning at my former church when we created a re-naming ceremony for one of our transgender members. What a powerful ritual for every person who was there that day! We spoke of the past (the old name and life) and we celebrated the future (the new name and life) and there were very few dry eyes in the place. Imagine what it meant to the family members of the one who was transitioning from female to male to be surrounded by community and to have their major life change be incorporated into a meaningful ceremony. So I say, “let them all graduate” and may we find many more ways to ritualize life’s long and winding roads!