I'm with you, kid

As of May 27, 2016, the Shade family is proud to announce our kindergarten graduate. The lovely Madelyn Simone has successfully learned to care and to share, and has mastered the checklist of achievements necessary to enter first grade. Where has the time gone?

I’ve asked that question quite a bit over the last few weeks, as graduates at all levels are donning their caps and gowns and processing into a stuffy gym, stadium or auditorium to the anticipatory notes of Edward Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance.” We strain to see “our” graduate amidst the sea of mortarboards, helped along by a touch of the creative on their headwear.

These are “our” kids, from our neighborhoods, from our churches, from our family. We remember the temporary lisp of lost teeth, the exhilaration of abandoned training wheels, and the infatuation and heartbreak of first love. It seems they sounded out their first words only yesterday, and now they’ve completed a dissertation with terms and concepts far beyond our comprehension.

We’re so proud of their achievements, because we know the back stories. We’ve watched as they’ve finished high school on the five-year plan, or struggled to balance marriage and parenting, full-time employment and college classes. Yet, just as the memory of labor fades for the new mother, so too the moment of graduation occurs in a haze of forgetfulness. We applaud the achievements of the graduates, but we also understand the reason a graduation ceremony is called commencement. For, as the Carpenters sang to us in 1970, “we’ve only just begun.” Just as true in 2016.

While I don’t intend to minimize the achievement of graduates at any level (after all, mastering the alphabet and learning to tie a shoe is a big deal for five-year-olds), it is ironic that our cheers and shouts of affirmation are louder at the front end of the journey than along the route or even at the end. To be clear, I’m talking end as in retirement, not funeral.

A disclaimer: we had the world’s best retirement party four years ago, with live music from the Kroc Center Big Band and spray park fun for the young and young at heart, glad to be embraced by those we’d come to love over our years as Salvation Army officers.

But many simply stop going to work on their sixty-sixth birthday, or stand silently as the family farm is auctioned off, no longer able to maintain the daily physical labor that calling demands. Our favorite waitress at the local diner departs for her sister’s home in Iowa, leaving no farewell ripples. No balloons, no gold watch. Just done.

There may be some honors along the way: senior citizen king or queen at the fair, a milestone birthday party, an anniversary picture in the Times-Gazette. But our lives post-graduation don’t overflow with affirmation. Our ingrained work ethic understands that we do what we need to do to house and feed our families, spoil our grandchildren, care for our elderly parents, and give back to our community. No “atta-boy” needed.

Yet how encouraging when the unexpected affirmation comes. Such was the case recently when the Ashland Team Ministry of First and Christ United Methodist Churches honored Rev. Tom Snyder with the title of Pastor Emeritus. Tom served both churches prior to his 2002 retirement date, and so the congregations bestowed this designation, with gratitude for his pastorates but also for his continued pastoral presence within the Ashland community. A well-deserved recognition to be sure.

As Tom and his wife Kitty were honored by the gathered church community, I wondered about my track record in affirming others. Do I recognize a job faithfully done? Am I intentional in sharing an encouraging word? Poet Maya Angelou helps us here: “Life likes to be taken by the lapel and told, ‘I’m with you kid. Let’s go.’”

Angelou’s lapel image challenges me to be on the look-out to share an encouraging word, a touch of gratitude, or an “I’m with you kid” – young or old. And since I can’t help myself I’ll start with a word to those in wine and gold lapels – Go Cavs! We’re all in . . . together!