Graduation Day.

It is that time of the year, and back in 1986, I had the accidental privilege of seeing my oldest son

"graduate" from Hoover Elementary School..

The story goes like this. I was coming home from work on a beautiful June day and I noticed a long line of children marching to a fast food restaurant. One of the kids was our son. His teacher was kind enough to see that every one in the class would celebrate with a treat  before they left Hoover to move on to Taft Junior High. Hoover is located not far from two restaurants and so the walk was not lengthy and her effort to see that this event would come to pass was unbelievable.

Graduations, marriages, funerals, birthdays and special religious holidays are  often called “Rites of Passage.” They tell the individual and the community that some thing important has happened in the lives of  us all.

In the post modern/global information society, these rituals are the few events that can bring extended families together who reside all over the country.

The televised funerals or marriages of the famous are also part of the rites of passages for the rest of us who never knew them. There are those of us who now mourn the loss of  Lady Linda McCartney, wife of Sir Paul McCartney of the Beatles and Wings. Earlier this winter, there was the loss of Beach Boys Carl Wilson, the lead guitarist for the band. On the internet, there were  over 60,000 strikes inquiring about his death.

How many got up early last year to see the funeral of Lady Di?

Other rites of passage for a society can be the annual events of  Memorial Day, Labor Day , the 4th of July and Thanksgiving. What ever the event, these rites can be anchors in our lives telling us that we have passed from one  part of our life to the next or one year to the following year.

When our children were small and there was a special occasion, I liked to take them to a bridge over Morgan Creek in northwest Cedar Rapids. There at the bridge, I would shake their hand and read to them from a holy book or another resource of readings. I told them that they were special and that they had entered a new stage in their life. I secretly thought to myself, that perhaps the ritual was more for myself than for them. It was my way of saying good bye to our children as they disappeared into adulthood.

This graduation day, both of our sons will graduate from the University of Iowa.  Many or most families will have some one in their extened or immediate family who will experience this same event as some one graduates from some institution of education.

However, as society becomes more mobile and the demands more complicated, these rituals can become forgotten. I think that is why, I invented the ritual at Morgan Creek. You may discover in your own family history that such personal rituals were invented to make important what was once sacred or honorable.

Years ago, there was a song called “Graduation Day.” Regardless of it’s popularity or lack of relevance now, the day is still one that one remembers throughout their life. And the day begets other future rites.

Right now, a class mate of my wife, Jennifer , is dying of cancer. We last saw her at my wifes’ class reunion. We will try to attend the funeral.  We went to her wedding. We exchanged Christmas cards every year, and we went to family reunions during the 4th of July when she was in the area. We received cards on the weddings of her children and the birth and baptism of her grand children.

Each rite can lead to another. They then become a catalogue of our life and the time when we look back

and forward at the same time. The rite brings together those who we may rarely see. And then it is over.

Graduation days are some times called commencement because, the rite of passage has a message about past/present/future.