photo courtesy of Dustin Collins

The month of May normally brings flowers after all the preceding month’s showers, but it also brings the annual Commencement activities. Having worked in college ministry for 18 years, I anxiously await the ending of yet another school year. However, this season brings something different. My first born, Caleb, graduated from college this past weekend. It was almost jarring to find myself surrounded by hundreds of other family members and loved ones in mass seating, as opposed to surveying the crowd from my comfortable chair on the platform. Other Commencement days have found me propped in my seat, feet tucked under my legs, and covered by my massive academic robe. I only open and close the usual service with a prayer and a blessing, so I simply enjoy the rest of the service and offer up the occasional good thought for the graduates as they embark on their new lives.

Yet, last Saturday found me slightly shivering in a hard metal chair on damp grass, with no bulky robe to shield me from the early morning mountain air. The tears fought for release as I kept picturing a very tiny, but very loud, toddler running around – not a grown man ready to embark on the adventure of life. Some of the days over the past 22 plus years were quite long, but the years seemed to have flown by. How could we have reached this point?

I am a proud mother of a very wonderful son, and I am ready to let him go to become the man he needs and wants to be. I’ve been letting go since day one, actually. At just a few weeks old, I realized that he oftentimes stopped crying when I placed him in a bouncy seat instead of my arms. He skipped to school that first day of kindergarten, boisterously exclaiming to every neighbor we passed where he was headed. He insisted he could do things by himself, without my supervision or help. He was more than ready to let go my hand and grab the hand of a cute blond girl when the time came. And he was ready to deal with the consequences of any decisions he made which may not have been the best.

The time has come. It’s been coming. He’s grown up and he’s an adult.

That doesn’t mean I have abdicated being his mother. I actually corrected his grammar last week, and we had a good discussion about his reading material now that nothing was required. I’m still his mom, but I’m also his friend. There will be times I will provide unsolicited advice, but I know the decisions are his alone. And if he tells me to keep my opinions to myself, I might have to bite my tongue, but I’ll do it.

Adulthood has commenced. During the activities of last weekend, I heard one student refer to college as being the best four years of one’s life. I beg to differ. I know from my work as a college minister that these years are challenging, stressful, sometimes painful, and fortunately sometimes joyful. I hope and pray that there is more good than bad. Yet, there are so many wonderful years ahead. I want my son, and all graduates, to see that this is just the beginning, the commencement, of life as an adult. That life will include many different emotions, and many times that will be better than the college years. Life is about embracing the good, and enduring and learning from the difficult. I hope each graduate will be ready for some of the best years yet to come.