Commencement

Every day is one more step toward you.

I'm having an interesting time right now, A.  I have one more week of teaching and then I get to be with you for an entire year.  I am so happy and excited to spend that time with you.  But I am also a little sad.

Not sad because you are coming to me, but sad because I will be leaving my students.  My students have been my children for 18 years.  They have made me laugh and cry and pull my hair out.  They have loved me and not loved me.  They have been my ports of calm when things in my life have been stormy.

I love them, too.

I am looking forward to the day when I can introduce you to them.  They are very excited you are coming, and are going to give you solid advice when you get here.  The girls want too coo over you and smile, to hug you and give you kisses. The boys want to give you high fives and talk to you about being men.

I am kind of an expert on the girl thing.  I teach a class about it and have done a lot of studying on the subject.  So when I heard you were a boy, I was a little bit scared. I worried that I would not know how to raise a little boy into a man.  But I am not worried any more.

I'm not worried because I have help.  I have your daddy, your uncles, and all of the young men that I have taught over the years.  They range from football players to robotics experts to musicians, and all of them are smart and thoughtful and strong.  They struggle with masculinity and expectations, they fall down, they make mistakes.  And they are all wonderful.

Every time one of my young men come into the classroom I think of you.  I wonder how you will grow, what you will like, who you will love.  I see in them little pieces of who you might become.

So I am sad to leave them.  The girls, too.  Everyone here.  But I know that I am only leaving one school for another, and that you will ultimately be my greatest teacher.

I am ready for class to begin.