Graduation Time

One of the most wonderful, beautiful, magical and gratifying things about being a parent is going to a graduation. I don't care what kind of graduation, but any recognition of a task completed satisfactorily is a cause for celebration. And this graduation is cause for a BIG celebration. My Mia is being pinned as an RN BSN, Registered Nurse with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing. AHHHHHHHH, just the sound of it is music to my ears. What this girl of mine did to reach her goal is too much to tell...she changed majors three times before she decided to pursue nursing. Mia took a year off Rutgers to work at the bone marrow transplant center at Robert Wood Johnson in New Brunswick as a nurse's aide for a year to make sure this was the right decision. It became her life's calling. I confess I was a little taken back by the stories of my virginal daughter giving 300 pound men a bed bath, or the heart wrenching stories of how she helped two little girls give their dying mother a last shampoo, then wrapped the mother up for the morgue when she died. Mia passes courses I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole, then berates herself if she gets a B. This time I have two months to prepare for the ceremony. Last year AJ called to say he was graduating from Rutgers College in two days, or something like that. Hardly time to get an outfit together, but still a joyous occasion. The US Army had delayed his graduation with a year's deployment to Gitmo in Cuba. He returned from Cuba and managed to finish his triple major of Poly Science, History and Theology. AJ is in seminary school in Nevada now while pursuing a master's degree in public administration at ULV. Did I raise these kids? Were all those years of running out to night school and sitting in class myself a positive example for them? I miss them like heck, and wish we lived closer. But we will all be together again on Graduation Day.