May is replete with many Milestones. Cotillions and Commencements collide. Marriages and for many, divorces.
For some, it’s Just the Beginning. For others, it’s a New Beginning.
Amongst the myriad graduation hats and tassels at my daughter’s college Commencement were two contrasting mortarboards. One spoke to a seeming readiness to take on the world with all the vim and vigor of a newly minted graduate on the cusp of adulthood.
The other exclaimed wisdom borne from experience outside the classroom as well as pride in her academic accomplishment.
As we travel down our own unique paths in life we accumulate knowledge from innumerable places, people and experiences. Recognizing that together we are wiser than any one of us is alone led me to ask a number of women in my life to pen “wise words of wisdom” for my daughter. I then had the privilege of fashioning those words into a booklet for her. After the sun had set and the excitement of graduation had been put to bed, I received the following text from my daughter: “That was the best graduation gift you could ever have given me. Thank you”.
The next week she presented both her dad and me with her words of thanks to us. Her words very clearly spoke to the value she places on the different ways we nurtured her. It was the best thank you gift she could ever have given to us.
At this season of new beginnings:
May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields….
