For Micah
The Graduate

By TAD BARTIMUS

Well, Graduate, your day has come. All those hall passes, late papers, all-nighters, SATs, cafeteria tuna noodle casseroles, field trips, track meets: it all comes down to one piece of paper and a funny hat.

Enjoy your senioritis. Hang out with your friends. Thank your teachers. Indulge your parents. This is a true golden moment. They're rare, they come and go so quickly we don't even notice until we look back. What those of us who have gone before you know, and you don't yet, is that on graduation day you'll march in a student, march out an adult – and keep going.

All these growing-up years you've grappled with choices: to do, or not to do, that is always the question.

The unknown is thrilling and terrifying. The older you get the more you know bad things happen. You lose people. Your waistline goes, then your resiliency. You learn your limitations. But you, Graduate, you still believe you can do anything. That's good.

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it," wrote Johann Wolfgang Goethe, back before Seinfeld. He was right. Dream it. Begin it. The Universe gets aboard.

Just one cautionary note: whatever you get you'll have to earn.

By now, Graduate, you already know that. Look at your report cards, college acceptance letters, scholarship money, job offers. Bloodlines can carry you only so far; then it's up to your own grit.

All these growing-up years you've grappled with choices: to do, or not to do, that is always the question. Drugs, sex, alcohol -- the consequences of a wrong decision are deadly. No generation knows that better than yours. For some of your peers who are HIV-positive or already infected with AIDS, the goal is simply to stay alive. It was tough on your parents to stand by, with fingers and toes crossed, and let you sort it out once they'd taught you all they could. But how else would you learn? Now that you're grown, no one has the right to tell you "yes you can" or "no you can't." On some days, you will miss that backstopping.

Because it's entirely up to you now whether you go one way or another, please think about this: If on a sunny Tuesday, your life is about to turn on a single choice, what would the people who truly love you want you to do? How would your actions affect their lives forever?

These last days of school, Graduate, you'll hear a lot of homilies: work hard, be accountable, be responsible, don't give up. Forgive me, but here are a few more: use your gifts; trust yourself; laugh a lot; don't go along to get along; risk in all things, especially love; put happiness first. If you are happy you can sort out the rest of it.

I wish I could hold you still, just so. Preserve in amber that eager smile, that hint of bravado, that clear-eyed gaze. It energizes me just to be with you, to feel your expectations, believe with you in tomorrow. But there's no holding you back. It's your turn. If you get scared or discouraged, just remember what you learned from Dr. Seuss when you were little: "You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose."

Here's looking at you, Kid. Knock 'em dead!

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