We Just Have to Say Goodbye

At the end of a school year I get all optimistic about how next year is going to be different.  I get to a point where I'm just ready to be done--after all, my students are "just drillin' holes" after a while. 

But, it means saying a lot of goodbyes.  Some years it's incredibly difficult to send these young men and women on their way.  I have had the good fortune to work with some really incredible kids.  This year I was lucky enough to get to take one group of talented kids to state competition.  It was a very small group.  But it was the first time our school had sent a group to state for this academic competition so we were pretty impressed with ourselves. 

But now our good times are over.  It's time to send another group off into the "real world" (whatever exactly that means).  They are off to bigger and better things.  I always get a bit excited for my kids who didn't quite fit in because when they get to college they will find other kids just like them.  They will be happier than they have ever been before.

A few years ago I had a very special group that graduated.  The night of graduation I drove up to school listening to a song by Joey + Rory "To Say Goodbye."  You can listen to it on their website (scroll down to see it on the jukebox).  I cried.  It's a touching song on it's own.  But the last 2 lines really resonated with me on that night: 

"No it ain’t let that we can’t let them go,
We just want to say goodbye"

Graduation is important to me.  Those kids come in and for four years they are my kids.  I see them become young men and women.  It amazes me every time.  Most of the time graduation is the last time I see these kids.

So when I am sitting on the football field with my kids, someone else's precious baby that is graduating--sometimes after tremendous challenges--I am so honored to be there.  But I'm a bit of a tourist.  I take the picture their parents can't get.  The impossibly close up picture as they shake hands with their teachers after they have walked across the stage.  The picture of them signing for their diplomas.  The whole time thinking that it isn't that I can't let them go. . .I just have to say goodbye.