A graduation message from "Unorganized Territory"

For many, many years in my former job as editor of the Cook County News-Herald, I wrote a column called Unorganized Territory. 

I greatly enjoyed writing Unorganized Territory and I miss it a bit. Although I have to admit it was a bit of a relief, leaving behind that weekly column deadline.
 

It was hard, week after week, to come up with something readable. There were many, many weeks when my column was written quickly on deadline about a random topic. Sometimes I’d find a nugget of importance in a comment at a county board or city council meeting, but other times I’d end up writing about a nice hike I’d taken or about some silly thing my dog had done. 
 

Once in a while, I’d even write about the pressure of writing a weekly column.
 

I made it more difficult for myself by ending each week’s column with a meaningful quote. Emphasis on meaningful. For the 16 years that I wrote the newspaper column, I worked incredibly hard to find the perfect quote, a sentence or two that captured the essence of the essay. Occasionally, finding the proper quote took longer than writing my column.
 

I also tried very hard to never repeat the quote that I placed at the end of the column. There are many amazing quotes that could be used over and over. But I preferred finding something different every week—sometimes from an old philosopher; sometimes from a modern-day poet or pundit. 
 

But I always tried to make the quote meaningful to me and hopefully, to the reader.
 

Except at graduation time. My self-induced quote quandary was relieved on graduation week when I deliberately chose to recycle an Erma Bombeck quote that is just too perfect to not share at graduation.
 

The columns I’ve written at graduation have all been similar. Each year I’ve wished the seniors well, but I’ve also acknowledged that the graduates really don’t care what I have to say. They are too busy lining up summer jobs before heading to college or the military. They are making travel and housing plans and spending this graduation summer saying goodbye to dear friends.
 

They don’t need advice from me, someone old enough to be their grandmother. The parents, however. That’s a different story.
 

Graduation is bittersweet for them. They are filled with relief that battles over curfew and homework are over. They are proud that their child made that march to Pomp and Circumstance. They’ve checked the degree to ensure that it was signed by the appropriate authorities.

And now, it’s time for the goodbye that every parent knows has been coming, but for which none are prepared. 
 

As parents, we know that our dear little baby will grow into a toddler. We know the terrible twos will lead to elementary school soccer and T-Ball games. We know there will be middle school dances and driver’s training and all those rites of passage.
 

Graduation is the final threshold to adulthood and it comes all too soon.
 

The last months and days are the craziest, with the final chaos of invitations and open houses and questions about what comes next.
 

And then suddenly, it’s over and your child—that tiny baby, that shy preschooler, that ornery teenager, that caring adult—is moving on.  As I’ve said in my empty nest column in years past, it’s the parents who most need a pat on the back right now. Congratulations, you’ve done it! 
 

I also think parents need the quote below. They need to hear these words of wisdom from humorist Erma Bombeck. I have a plaque hanging in my hall with this prose, a gift from my mom when my first “baby” graduated in 1997. It still tugs at my heartstrings when I read it, but I also find it comforting.
 

So, dear Class of 2019 parents, I hope you do as well.
 

From Erma: 

…Finally, they are airborne, but they need more string –
You keep letting it out and with each twist of the ball of twine, there is a sadness that goes with the joy,
because the kite becomes more distant and somehow you know that it won’t be long
until that beautiful creature will snap the lifeline that bound you together
and soar as it was meant to soar –
free and alone.
 

By Erma Bombeck, from me, Rhonda Silence and all of us at WTIP