Graduation Week: Saturday
It wasn't raining. That was great.
It was about a forty-minute walk to Michigan Stadium, and this is what the big graduation ceremony at the University of Michigan looks like:
If you're thinking that seems like a huge number of people for a graduation, you'd be right. About 60,000, in fact. It was fun, though. This felt like more of a celebration than the other ceremonies. Plus, I got to sit with his roommate's parents, who are incredibly nice (and, like everyone else that weekend, because I was Eli's Dad, I was immediately accepted by everyone).
Wynton Marsalis gave the commencement address, which started off incredibly incisive and inspiring and wound up in a ditch. Eli 21.9 climbed up after the ceremony to find me, and the first thing he said was, "What'd you think about that speech?"
"It started off focused and brilliant, and then it devolved into an old man rambling about things he didn't understand. You can only have one theme in a commencement address, not five.
He started laughing. "That's word-for-word what I said to [his girlfriend]!"
That used to happen all the time, and it still does, which means a lot to me.
Pictures:
That bottom picture is how we've always been and always will be, I hope.
He wasn't done, though. Political Science graduation was later that day, and he received the William Jennings Bryan Award, which is ironic, because WJB was a complete tool and Eli would have mocked him mercilessly.
Here's the video: JWB Award.
And with that, I've survived graduation week twice, although "survived" is not the right word.
What made me the happiest was seeing how loved Eli was by everyone: his friends, other students, professors, parents. Everyone just lighted up when he was around. To have other people feel the same way you do about the son you love so much (I'm tearing up writing this) is incredibly special.
It feels like a chapter of his life is ending, but as he always does, the next chapter has already begun. He's a master of overlap. He'll be at Oxford in October, and I can't wait to see what he does next.
I'm lucky.
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