Palo Pinto County Graduation Class of 2020 | Page 13

And of course, there’s always a
Senior “gift” to the high school administration.
Like the time every graduate
gave Dr. Evans a can Dr. Pepper, or
the time they gave Mr. Corsi more golf
balls than he knew what to do with.
Or that one time each of them draped
a key on a necklace of yarn around my
neck only for me to discover after the
graduation ceremony ended that they
had padlocked my motorcycle to the
flagpole. The good news: I had the key.
The bad news: I had over 200 other
keys, too, and I didn’t know which one
unlocked my motorcycle.
What would they have done to Dr.
Funk or to Mr. Williams, Mrs. Gray,
or Mr. Rivas this year? Graduation ceremonies
for this year are—at the time
of this writing—up in the air. We may
never know.
The Class of 2020 won’t get the
typical graduation experience. Whether
it happens at Ram Stadium with social
distancing restrictions or whether it
happens to be a private, one-studentat-a-time
personal graduation, it will be
different.
But maybe it isn’t all bad. Sometimes
being forced into something new results
in some pleasant discovery. Looking
ahead at the creative Covid-19 graduation
solutions bubbling up all around
the nation, I don’t know right now
what that discovery might be. There are
drive-in graduations where the audience
stays in its cars, virtual graduations occurring
totally online, delayed graduations
taking place perhaps in July or
August, and—what many schools, including
here at MWHS, are preparing
for this year—the possibility of sociallydistanced
graduations. These could be
graduation cermonies wherein guests
are limited and asked to sit with ample
space between them in the stands, or
they could be individualized graduation
ceremonies wherein each graduate
has the stage to himself or herself with
a tiny number of their family members
in the audience to celebrate with them
as they seize their diploma; as they seize
their future.
At MWHS, our 2020 seniors will
cross the stage like so many graduates
before them, but we don’t know right
now if they’ll be following the graduate
in front of them or if each one will
be blazing their own trail and walking
alone across the graduation stage. This
year, it might not be “a graduation.” It
might be “your graduation.”
If so, it will be quieter. It will be
more intimate. Their handful of chosen
guests will watch and campus administrators
will be there. Someone will
be filming; someone will take pictures.
And after all these individual ceremonies
are complete, someone will combine
the videos and photos from each
of these 160-odd special graduations
into a compilation roughly resembling
a typical commencement ceremony—
complete with student speeches and the
certification of graduates.
Maybe the happy discovery will be
that they don’t need bleachers full of
spectators to feel special—that the six
most important people in the world
to them are in fact a more impressive
crowd than 3,000 strangers and mere
acquaintances. Or maybe the happy
discovery will be that they don’t need
to follow anyone across the graduation
stage. That they aren’t a big fish in a
small sea or a small fish in a big sea, but
that, in reality, they are the whole sea to
those who love them. That they’re ready
to walk on their own, to be their own
individual, to live their life and make
their way. For themselves.
Or maybe the happy discovery will
be that—as important as school has
been for them for 13 years, and as important
as their teachers have been, and
as important as their friends have been,
and as important the traditions and
touchstones of elementary and secondary
education have been—they’re ready.
They’re ready to leave it behind, and
to venture into a new and unknown
world. It was taken from them earlier
than any of us had planned, but maybe
they were surprised to learn that the
world—and their future—was already
waiting for them.
Or maybe, as they reflect on how
their world was upended in a flash—
none of us knew when we left for
Spring Break that we wouldn’t be
back—they’ll realize that nothing
should be taken for granted. Maybe
their happy discovery will be that every
single day is a gift from God, and tomorrow
isn’t guaranteed.
Or maybe it will be this—as they
reflect on how a little town like Mineral
Wells wrapped them in its arms
and ached with them for all their lost
experiences, and tried to make it better
by adopting them and celebrating them
in so many ways—maybe they’ll realize
that they are loved, and not just by
their friends and family. They’re loved
by people who don’t even know them.
Yes, that’s my hope. May this last
one be the happy discovery our seniors
take from this sad, sad virus: that love
isn’t something to be measured out
stingily, that love isn’t something to
be withheld until we decide someone
deserves it—because none of us really
deserves it. Kindness is like oxygen—
everyone needs it, badly, and dies
without it, and none of us has a right
to deprive the world of kindness. May
the happy discovery be that love should
be our starting point, not something
we hide until someone says or does
just the right things. May the happy
discovery be that even people we don’t
know deserve our kindness and that
some of them maybe don’t always run
into much kindness in their daily lives,
and that we can and should be the light
for them.
May the Seniors of 2020 see those
around them who are shining lights for
them now, during this hard time, and
realize that the day will come when it
will be their turn. Another group may
need them to be the light-holders. May
they pay it forward.
Congratulations, Class of 2020!
There has never been a class like yours,
and there will never be another.
Mineral Wells Graduation 2020 13