Musings on my college graduation...

This is the time to remember because it will not last forever; 

these are the days to hold on to because we won't although we'll want to.

          ~Billy Joel

Yesterday afternoon I was knitting and found my mind wandering a bit... and then it hit me. Forty years ago I had graduated from college. Forty years!  I found myself remembering a lot about that time in my life-- the four years I spent in college were formative-- I entered a kid, really. And graduated as an adult, ready and eager to take my place in the world. Full of ideals and plans for my life.

There were four of us who became fast friends that first semester of our freshman year at the University of Michigan. All of us were nursing students. I thought of the four of us and how different our lives have turned out than what we thought. My college roomie is perhaps living the closest to what I would have predicted for her-- but even she had a few unexpected turns in her life. She isn't married to the person she thought she would marry back when she was a freshman. She matured past the high school boyfriend, eventually met another wonderful guy as a junior, and married him a year or so after graduation. She was a nurse, loving the complicated patients in the ICU-- but eventually "left the bedside" for a job in research with a pharmaceutical company. Happily, she is still married to that wonderful guy and has two delightful daughters and a son-in-law and grandson. And she too retired recently.

Then there is the one who was the most cheerful of the four of us-- always laughing, always trying to look at the bright side of life. She was extremely popular with the guys as a freshman, dating lots of them. She met a special one, married him the summer before we were seniors. She worked in various bedside nursing jobs early on, but finally found her niche in social work and counseling. Her marriage ended abruptly and very badly after 25 years, leaving her single with 2 almost grown sons. She swore off men, got the boys raised and then started going on mission trips... where she met a wonderful widowed man who eventually convinced her to risk marriage again-- and she has been very happily married ever since. Her new family includes step sons and daughters and I'm not even sure how many grandchildren. She loves them all! She has retired as well.

Another of our fab four left nursing school after her personal life came crashing down with a broken engagement. She never graduated, but eventually married a guy she met in school. She was the one who drifted the farthest from our group-- though kept in touch with us. And she is the only one who is no longer with us. She passed away suddenly from a devastating stroke at too young an age.

And then there is me. I met my husband the first week of freshman year, and that was it-- we were a couple almost immediately and eventually married 2 years after graduation. That marriage lasted 26 years, long enough for us to raise two wonderful boys. I went into OB nursing, as I had predicted I would. I worked at the bedside the longest of any of the four of us, but eventually got into administration and an office. After my divorce, I swore off men too. But that was a lonely life, so I gave an internet dating service a try and met Lanny...  and you all know how well that turned out! I am also retired from nursing.

All of us at the time of our graduation envisioned happy lives spent with the men we had met in college and fallen in love with. We envisioned a happy family life, a rewarding career that would make us all contributors to the society we lived in. Each of us experienced bumps along the way-- marital breakups, seriously ill children, jobs that were so hard on us either physically or mentally that we had to leave them... and one of us died way too soon. But each of us, I think, did live up to the expectation of making the society we lived in a better place. And each of us, I think, would agree that we were better people because of the friendships formed with one another that first semester of our freshman year at University of Michigan.

I have been reading lots of posts on Facebook about graduations. Last night we could hear the reverie of a graduation party in the neighborhood... and I think about all those young people with hopes and expectations for their futures, just as I had when I graduated.  My wish for them is to find friends to travel the road with, to help them with the bumps in their lives. And to realize there will be bumps, the road won't be straight at all, and there will be moments of sadness, tragedy and desperation. Friends will help them face all of that without loneliness or fear.

So here's to you Cindy, Donna and Marty! And Jean and Kathy! And of course Patty! And Kathy and Karen! And all the other friends along the path of my life. Thank you all for enriching my life, for making it the grand adventure it has been. And here's to the journey as we all head into the future-- which remains as bright as the day we graduated because of our friendships...

Here I am with my closest college friends at our last reunion a couple years ago. None of us has lived life exactly as we thought... but we've contributed to society and stayed friends.

My friends have made the story of my life. In a thousand ways they have turned my limitations into beautiful privileges and enabled me to walk serene and happy in the shadow cast by my desperation.

         ~Helen Keller