Well, he did it!
The long ordeal is over and Zack received his high school diploma last night along with all the other SW grads of '08.
I can hardly believe it.
There were so many times during the last four years when it just seemed like this was never gonna happen.
I know there are kids out there with learning disabilities; smart kids who just can't seem to get it done, not so smart kids who will go on to lead wildly successful lives and kids that are destined to be that old guy who just asked me for a quarter.
It never crossed my mind that my own son would be a kid who reads everything he gets his hands on; ten minutes of conversation is all it takes to convince you he's smarter than 95% of the race; has almost perfect recall and an uncanny sense of direction, yet by second grade had decided that there are subjects unworthy of his attention and nothing and nobody can convince him to waste time on them. Like math. And science. And English, if he doesn't like the assigned book. And history, if he thinks the teacher is a tool.
Not only that, but he's watched his older sister get straight A's in everything for years and he frequently suspects that she's dumber than soap. He also knows that I always got good grades and he thinks I'm too stupid to feed myself. (This is actually true; left to my own devices, I'd eat nothing but cookies.) It's no wonder he's not impressed with grades.
Things I've learned from Zack;
1. You can lead a horse to water but after that all you can do is hold his head under til he drowns. If you don't want him to drown, you can let him up for air occasionally and he'll probably describe the ecosystem down there and then ask for some root beer.
2. Your kids will teach you things about your spouse you'd never guess. After all, HE DIDN'T GET THAT FROM ME.
3. That lumbering hulk of a kid who looks like a grizzly bear and speaks in grunts may have scored right off the charts in every category.
4. Your kids are cooler than you are.
4a. Actually, Tyler taught me that.
5. It's all good.
We dropped Zack, with his cap and gown, at the convention center on time and then went over to Brit's pub to kill the hour we had before the ceremonies began. It was a gorgeous evening. Too bad we couldn't spend more of it sipping our black and tans and listening to the music at Orchestra hall, but we had more important beans to roast. I for one, had to see Zack walk with my own eyes to believe it.
Sure enough, when the graduates processed in, there he was, all six feet two inches of him, standing straight and looking mighty pleased with himself in his bright purple robe and mortarboard. He was wearing sunglasses. His Dad hollered at him and he turned and gave us a thumbs up.
There were over 400 grads in the class, so awarding the diplomas took some time. They had two teachers who announced the kids names. Each graduate had a blue slip upon which they had printed their own names and handed to the announcers as they crossed the stage. That way the teachers don't have to worry about putting the wrong name to a student.
Most of the names were your typical First, Middle and Last name; Thomas Benjamin Reilly, Anna Martina Smith. A lot of them were hyphenated; Martha Marilyn Weinstein-Hoax. I swear there was one kid named Lars Ahmed Sullivan-Goldstein. Finally, about three hundred and twenty kids in, we see Zack approach the stage and hand over his name card.
We're listening for Zack's name to ring out across the auditorium as further proof that he was really graduating and this wasn't simply another one of his tricks.
Mr. Fischer looked at the card and said
"PIV."
Zack had edited his card.
Doesn't matter. The diploma has his full name on it.
