Then finally the short journey over to the school. Time for robes, hats, stoles, cords, medals and most of all pictures.
Ella graduated from high school.
My baby's world changed today. We both knew it. We had been planning for it, and not just this entire year with college visits and scholarship applications.
Ella and I both knew that we would not get through this day without tears. Ella has always been my most tearful child. She feels everything so strongly.
The first moment I saw the tears in her eyes, I knew there was no stopping them from my own. (Of course I would have shed some tears today regardless.)
For a couple of days now, I have been considering this thing we call graduation. I have contemplated what it means for those involved. Even though, or maybe because this isn't my first graduation of a child, I think I now understand it more.
Graduation is much more difficult than childbirth on a mother. The pain, the happiness, the expectation, the hope, the love... all of those are present in both.
We carry our children for nine months. We start to get to know them. We love them. We finally get to hold them in our arms for the first time.
And then...
We carry and guide our children for 18 years. We know them. We love them. We finally open our arms and start to let them go.
I love you Ella Rae.
