Graduations - from someone who has survived a few

As any number of giddy eighth-graders, high school seniors or college seniors can tell you, graduation day is soon to be upon us. To some it will signify never having to set foot inside a classroom again, while to others it is just the ending of one stage of academia before another begins. While my family prepares for both a high school graduation and eighth-grade graduation in the coming weeks, I thought it would be fun to look back at the last time I graduated, and what it meant for me.

I was one of the youngest in my first-grade class, but was also near the top of it academically. A penchant for class clowning I discovered in third grade eventually led to a scholastic freefall, and by eighth grade, I was much closer to the bottom of my class than the top. Oh, and I got a Timex watch when I graduated.

High school? No thanks, that's one four-year sentence I would never serve again. Once more I was nowhere near the top of my class. Oh, and I got a health club membership and a handshake.

Then came college. I took my first classes during the summer I was 26. I also had two very young children at home I chose to bend my school schedule around. I was going to college to give them a better future - I was not one of those people who longed for a framed piece of paper telling everybody that I went to college.

On the day of my graduation from college, I literally picked up my cap and gown in the morning and made a quick trip to my parents' house to iron out the considerable wrinkles before the afternoon commencement ceremony. Hanging out in the lobby with a few of my classmates waiting for the procession to begin, I hoped my kids would be able to see me among the throng of bodies all dressed the same in my hometown civic center.

Then as we begin the march in to "Pomp and Circumstance," I saw my son leaning over the railing of the stairway we were passing through, with a toothy smile on his face giving me a "thumbs up" sign with his little hand.

Later when I walked across the stage after having received my diploma, he and his little sister were waiting for me, with a stuffed bear wearing a mortarboard. I tousled my daughter's hair when she gave it to me, and to this day I get blamed for "messing her hair."

She's going to be the next graduate after this year, majoring in psychology from the same college I went to. She then plans on going to law school.

I did it for them, and when I see what my children have become and the directions they're heading, I hope that my example showed them what truly is possible.

That is what graduating meant to me.