Awake for It

I’ve been reflecting on this quote from Gretchen Rubin, “The days are long, but the years are short.” On this graduation day, I watched over four hundred graduates walk the stage and receive their diplomas.

A tradition was started today at our high school. It was actually a tradition that was started at the previous district where the high school principal and I proudly served together. If you search for “University of Iowa wave” you will find this:

“The “Hawkeye Wave” is a celebrated tradition at University of Iowa home football games where over 70,000 fans, players, and coaches pause at the end of the first quarter to turn and wave to the pediatric patients watching from the windows of the nearby UI Stead Family Children’s Hospital. 

The heartwarming gesture was started in 2017 when the new hospital was built overlooking Kinnick Stadium. Since its inception, it has grown into one of the most respected and emotional traditions in all of college sports.”

During our graduation ceremony, the principal, Greg Pottebaum, shared the story of the wave with the crowd and then asked graduates to take out their phones and write a note to someone in the stands, thanking them for their love and guidance throughout their K-12 schooling. The song, “Your Love Keeps Lifting Me Higher” came on and everyone turned on the flashlights on their phones, including the graduates, as if taking a moment to wave to one another during this momentous occasion.

Certainly, the song and the waves are moving to see. But in the moments before the light drop, when the graduates are sending their text messages to loved ones, that’s my favorite part. Because if you look closely, you can see many of them are brought to tears, overcome with gratitude for the adults in their lives who have loved, cared for, and guided them over the years. It’s as if they are meeting the magnitude of that love and this moment for the first time. It’s so raw and honest and human.

Education is one of the few professions where we get to be a part of these special moments…the first and last days of school and the graduations too. And there is something about being a part of this every school year that remind us of the passing of time. It reminds us of our own graduations and the graduations in our families too. That’s the thing about time, it stops for no one.

And we can be daunted by this and even devastated at times. But we have an opportunity to allow this consciousness to awaken us. We can choose to pour more life into the time that remains. We can choose to be more awake and to meet the moment. Whatever that moment may be.

And I think that’s truly beautiful.