Graduation Day
My beautiful niece, Andrea, had a party to celebrate her graduation from high school. The weather was good, the food was great, the beer was cold, and the old stories were flying.
I kept going back in my mind to my own graduation and the feeling that I'd finally arrived.
And it's a funny thing about time because it was just a blink of an eye, right? And there I was sitting with a chair to prop up my foot, grey whiskers on my face, a lot of my hair having left for somewhere. I saw my brother running around the party too, and he looked just as old.
But there were still a few laughs hiding inside. We all sat in a circle, sipping the beer, and telling story after story. My father was reaching way back in time to tell a story about a couple of friends of his who stayed in a ring for three minutes with a gorilla to win a bottle of wine.
Three-fourths of our altar boy group was in attendance at the party and John, Joe and I remembered a day when Joe was lambasted by the priest for sticking his finger out of his crotch area in the middle of the mass. Joe might have gotten away with it if John and I hadn't laughed.
The new graduates were well away from the older members of the gathering, no doubt talking of their hopes and dreams for the days to come, and that's the best part of graduation day - seeing the wide world out there for the taking, and realizing that you'd have to work hard to make it work.
Life has changed for the Fazzolari's for sure. Gatherings are still looked forward to, but its a real chore to chase away the sadness. Sometimes it works better than others, yesterday, it went okay.
But there is a steeling force behind the battle against the sadness. We still have each other, we still have dreams, and we certainly can still make one another laugh.
So, for all the graduates out there: chase the dreams, and realize that heartache will certainly come. Rise above it. Suck it up and tough it out. Whatever it takes. Keep punching. Work Hard. Take time to smell the roses. Love your family. Do more than what is expected. Make lemonade.
All that shit.
It's true.
I kept going back in my mind to my own graduation and the feeling that I'd finally arrived.
And it's a funny thing about time because it was just a blink of an eye, right? And there I was sitting with a chair to prop up my foot, grey whiskers on my face, a lot of my hair having left for somewhere. I saw my brother running around the party too, and he looked just as old.
But there were still a few laughs hiding inside. We all sat in a circle, sipping the beer, and telling story after story. My father was reaching way back in time to tell a story about a couple of friends of his who stayed in a ring for three minutes with a gorilla to win a bottle of wine.
Three-fourths of our altar boy group was in attendance at the party and John, Joe and I remembered a day when Joe was lambasted by the priest for sticking his finger out of his crotch area in the middle of the mass. Joe might have gotten away with it if John and I hadn't laughed.
The new graduates were well away from the older members of the gathering, no doubt talking of their hopes and dreams for the days to come, and that's the best part of graduation day - seeing the wide world out there for the taking, and realizing that you'd have to work hard to make it work.
Life has changed for the Fazzolari's for sure. Gatherings are still looked forward to, but its a real chore to chase away the sadness. Sometimes it works better than others, yesterday, it went okay.
But there is a steeling force behind the battle against the sadness. We still have each other, we still have dreams, and we certainly can still make one another laugh.
So, for all the graduates out there: chase the dreams, and realize that heartache will certainly come. Rise above it. Suck it up and tough it out. Whatever it takes. Keep punching. Work Hard. Take time to smell the roses. Love your family. Do more than what is expected. Make lemonade.
All that shit.
It's true.
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~Rachelle