End Is Near - for School

As appeared in the Albuquerque Journal Rio Rancho section July 31, 2010

Why is this line so long? Did you bring the bus form we have to turn in? Why can't I get the gold parking pass now? My registration fee is how much? I really don't remember there ever being a line this long.

There I was last Wednesday morning, standing in line to register my daughter for her senior year at Rio Rancho High School. A line that at 8 a.m. I thought would be nonexistent, but instead snaked its way from the cafeteria across the campus into the parking lot. As I looked at the people around me, it was easy to pick out which kid went with which parent; there was a sea of mini me's, all looking like their parents did 30 or so years prior. I wondered if the melancholy of my child's impending graduation milestone was going through the heads of the other parents like it was mine. Yes, I am projecting, but that's what I do.

I already know that I will be holding back the tears through every school event this year, knowing it will be my daughter's last "everything" in high school. And the first test I had was making it through the taking of her senior pictures. Talk about coming full circle. Since parents usually are not with their kids when their class pictures are taken, the last time I was witness to my daughter having her picture taken for school was in preschool when she was 4 years old. Here I was now watching her pose in a cap and gown for her high school graduation. I didn't make a scene; I didn't cry or walk out. But inside I was dying.

Where did the time go? All I did was blink and she grew up. My brother warned me this would happen but I didn't believe him. Now I am looking down the barrel of senior year and I have to keep my composure through it all.

I won't cry at the last football game when her marching band takes the field for the last time.

I won't cry when she picks out a dress and goes to her last Homecoming dance with her friends and then comes home to tell he how much fun they all had, dancing in the rain to ACDC's "You Shook Me All Night Long."

I won't cry when the marching band wins a trophy at Zia Marching Band Fiesta at the University of New Mexico and the drum majors do their special salute and the band and crowd go wild (yes I will).

My biggest hurdle will be having to sit through the video at the band awards banquet next spring when they show a baby, child and senior picture of each graduating senior. I've teared up at this sequence since the first time I saw it four years ago, and I didn't even know the kids who were in it.

I remember seeing my mother cry when I left for college and not understanding her tears. She spent my whole life teaching me independence, common sense and how to stand up straight. I thought for sure she would be happy to see me spread my wings and fly the nest. Now I understand her tears. Heaven help me. Thank goodness I have one more daughter.

Quote of the Week: "Graduation day is tough for adults. They go to the ceremony as parents. They come home as contemporaries. After 22 years of child-rearing, they are unemployed." — Erma Bombeck