All That Remains is the Glitter (and Some Memories)

It is graduation season at the nation’s colleges and high schools and millions are donning caps and gowns and going through ceremonies and rituals that have been around for as long as any of us alive today can remember.

And graduates have probably been saying for just as long that they were only doing this for their parents.

I suspect that if the graduates could take a vote they might do away with all of the pomp and circumstance.

But many of them go through it anyway even though I know a number of people who skipped their graduation ceremony and at least one who was there, but sitting with the audience and not walking across the stage like the rest of us.

When I taught at John Carroll University, faculty members were expected to participate in the ceremony.

After one particular commencement, I remember going the next day to get a haircut or some such mundane activity and wondering what the graduates were thinking today.

All of their lives they had been preparing for going to college. Then college came and it must have seemed like an eternity before they would graduate.

But they did and now it was the morning after. What are they thinking now that a major part of their life is behind them?

I was reminded of that question when I ran across this “glitter” on the bricks in front of the Rose Well House on the campus of Indiana University.

The Well House is one of the more iconic landmarks on the Bloomington campus and countless grads had their picture taken in front of it.

Graduation Day at IU had been four days earlier and some graduates had left behind – although probably unintentionally – some reminders of that day.

Now it is time to get on with the rest of their life. But cheer up grads. There is always graduate school if you don’t want to face life just yet. And you will always have your memories.