Graduation

Karine will graduate from Conifer High School today; can she really be 18?  Can I really be that old?  Her experience with High School and especially with graduation has been so radically different from my own graduation from Rift Valley Academy almost 30 years ago.  Karine has only been at this school for two years, and while she's built a few solid friendships she only knows a fraction of the 500 kids in her graduating class.  My graduating class was only 65, and we all knew each other very, very well.  Graduation was a BIG deal at RVA, because it meant that we would all leave Kenya and depart for schools all across America - and for many others back to their home countries of Holland, England, and Canada, etc.  Most of Karine's friends will go to college here in Colorado, and they'll see one another again on weekends and school vacations.  Since my high school graduation in 1981 I have only seen a handful of my friends from boarding school, and because I was living overseas for the past 20 years I've missed every one of our class reunions. 

Karine was considering not even attending her graduation, because her friends aren't interested either.  In the end I convinced her to go - if for no other reason than because Daphne and I want to be there to see her graduate.  I also believe one day she'll look back and be glad that she marked this important milestone in her life.  I can understand why this doesn't hold the same importance for Karine as my graduation did for me, because she's only been at this school a short time and hasn't built the lifetime friendships that many others have who are from this community.  In France there is no graduation ceremony at all, because all the attention, stress, and your entire academic future hang in the balance based on one final exam - The Baccalaureate.  That's the academic environment Karine grew up in, as opposed to here in the U.S. where your first 12 years of school end with your High School graduation - and then for most of them on to college.

This will be the first American High School graduation I have attended since my own 30 years ago.  My life has certainly taken some amazing twists and turns since that memorable day in Kijabe, Kenya in 1981.  I could never have imagined back then that I would spend 10 years in West Africa, and even less likely that we would take on dual French-American citizenship!  And now God has planted us here in Conifer, Colorado - where it snows a blizzard on May 19th, and bears walk down our driveway at night.  It's all good.