Commencement doesn’t mean the end but the beginning. We salute our local graduates this week as they embark on a new life. And we want to remind them to enjoy it, because life is short. (The words of a grandma! Most graduates probably don’t feel that way.)
But even if life is short, there is plenty of time to try new things, fall, dust yourself off and try all over again.
This weekend is also Father’s Day, when we each honor the fathers in our lives. One special thing I’ve noticed that the fathers in my life share is that they each have a passion in their life that has been so strong and contagious that their children have “inherited” that same interest. My father loves newspapers and politics. One son became a professor of political theory; the other children have taken over this newspaper trying to follow his example.
My husband is a professor of Spanish. His two older children now teach it too. My son loves soccer and lacrosse, and so does his son. It is too soon to tell what careers our younger daughter and our grandchildren will choose, but we know they can’t wait to go to Spain.
My brother balances his work of writing with hiking, and his son is a science and nature writer; his daughter researches the lives of animals in the wild.
There’s the old cliche, “Do what I say, not what I do.” But most children spend more time watching than listening. When they have a father who lives life to the fullest, they have learned an important way to be.
So thank you, Dads, for leading the way by example.