Scene 29 - Graduation

Hey friends -- It's been a while since my last post.  There will be a several posts coming up in rapid succession (every 2 or 3 days) as I post the last few commentaries about the piece Who Am I, Again?  Please read and enjoy, and keep in touch to learn what will be the next steps for this blog.

*********Scene 29 - Graduation*************

I remember my high school graduation.

and I don’t remember much about the ceremony itself,
up until I got my diploma.

See, we all got into line,
alphabetical order,
names were called,
Ryan before me,

and then, Lethan Candlish.

I walked halfway across the stage,
shook the Mr. Kellerman’s hand — the vice principal,
took my diploma,
and -

Now, like we said, Bloomsburg is a small town,
so everybody’s all up in everybody’s business,
and Everyone had heard something about my accident And my Miracle Recovery,

and as I finished crossing the stage, people began to applaud for me.

Truth is they stood up!

I got a standing ovation!

Now, I see this, and my theatrical instincts take over, so I turn,
face full front,
Deep bow.

And they laugh.

and I walked back to my seat thinking I made it…
Yippee

 I wasn’t proud of myself - why should I be?
The second half of my senior year — with all the aids and help I was given — had been a joke.
Must have been pretty funny too - the audience had laughed.

I was alone.
Tired.
Afraid.

I heard the name James Edgars called and I looked up on stage and saw James
in his wheelchair,
moving across the stage to…

See James has muscular dystrophy, so he’s always been in a wheel chair, at least as long as I’ve known him.

And, well, James and I — we were never close,
But he had worked harder than anyone to be graduating high school at all,
I mean yeah, he had been given a lot of help, a lot of aids — lot of assistance —
And I had that too —
but..

And as James took his diploma from Mr. Kellerman, he had this smile that Outshone the stage lights.

and as he finished his cross, again the audience applauded
Huge!
All around — shaking the seats of the auditorium

And it made sense…all of it.

I began to applaud as well because James had done it.

I had done it!

All of us, we were graduating.

And after the ceremony Mrs. Edgars, James’s mother, found me to congratulate me on getting through high school,

and I looked at her,
and I looked at James, smiling next to her,
and I looked back at her and I said, “well, thanks, but,
Well, congratulations to you -
To Both of you.
I had half a year, but you
Both of you made it through
Everything - Congratulations.”

And she looked at me
said, “huh,
well I guess life gives everyone challenges,
and we all just
Get through them differently.”

***********Commentary*****************

“To graduate” is a process.  The word “graduate” comes from the latin root “grad” — meaning “step” — and a graduation is a step in life.  Another word that stems from the root of “grad” is “gradually” — changing little by little, step by step.

We decorate some moments of graduation with grandeur and glory — but these moments are somewhat arbitrarily selected, yet are declared to be “milestones in life” because of the pageantry involved.  I don’t write this to demean any achievement of graduation, but to recognize that graduation is not a moment of completion, but a marker as we gradually move along our timeline.  When we graduate from a class or a school, we are not done with learning or experiencing — we are taking the next step.

Hold on to that idea because we come back to it — but first the article is going to take a quick tangential sidestep.

“Being” is also a process.  On dictionary.com, the term is defined as “the fact of existence”, but it seems to me that the “-ing” ending implies an active verb — a process — and I suggest that “being” is better defined as “the process of existence”.  If we accept my definition, we can assume that being involves change, and as human beings — involved in a process — we are continuously changing — moving to the next step of life.  In other words, we are perpetually graduating (told you we’d come back to it).  We have agreed to publicly acknowledge some moments of graduation — but these selected instances hold no more objective value than any other steps on a timeline — when observed in the past tense, every life has a line that is plump with graduations — often unacknowledged — events that cause a change and push a person into a new stage of life.

Some unacknowledged graduations from my timeline…

When I made the decision to teach English overseas instead of pursuing a promising career opportunity in the United States, beginning a decade long excursion that has allowed me to live in South Korea, China, and Russia.

At age 8, meeting my best friend at his house and playing with Ninja Turtle action figures — beginning a friendship that continues to have a profound impact on my life.

The New Year of 2019, bending to one knee and finally proposing marriage to the woman who will soon be my wife.

Listening to that same lover when she challenged me — “You’re thinking of writing a blog?  Well, what can you tell about your brain injury story that is new?” — thus beginning this self-reflective writing process.


The moment my car hit a telephone pole and I began the never-ending journey of
 discovery after brain injury.

Each moment in the above list is a kind of graduation — and this list could continue for pages.  I include my accident as part of this list because it was a step in my life — not the most pleasant step, but it certainly took me to a new stage of living — therefore, I now consider it a moment of graduation.  I know you have a similarly infinite list — and if you don’t already know what is on your list, I encourage you to take a few minutes to think about it — write down the pleasant as well as the difficult — recognize some moments that changed everything — moments of graduation.

As a brain injury survivor, it can quickly feel as though we are static — stuck in our state — every day is a day of rehabilitation and relearning skills.  When I was in early recovery, I held the idea of a “graduation” from rehab in my mind, and falsely believing that this would mean I had finishing recovery and was returning to my condition prior to the accident.  I remember holding that goal in my mind — and there were instincts when it seemed so close — just one or two more things and I would succeed — but it always evaded my grasp, creating further aggravation.  This became most clear in my social interactions — I wanted friendships to be as before, but that couldn’t happen because this was a new stage of living — and I had to deal with that.  My classmates and I were all getting ready to graduate, but I had already gone through a different graduation, and it was hard to accept.

Took me years.  Many years.

So I gotta be blunt — as a survivor, we tend to want things to be the same as before, but that is not going to happen.  If returning to your previous life is a goal, you are never going to complete it.  As a brain injury survivor, we never “finish” recovering — and certainly never return to a prior state — we’ve changed as part of the injury.  Hell, we’ve graduated. 

And we will continue to graduate — continue to change.  Take some time and acknowledge moments in your rehabilitation that can be recognized as graduations — moments that have marked you taking a new step.  Write these down or share them with a caregiver — appreciate making the next step.  I remember getting my mouth unwired and graduating to eating with my mouth again —leaving my wheelchair behind and graduating to taking a walk on the streets of Philadelphia with my rehabilitation coach — hugging my favorite caregivers farewell as I left Magee Rehabilitation hospital and graduating to a home based recovery plan — and again, this list could continue forever.

We cannot celebrate every graduation — having Pomp and Circumstance (the song played at high school graduation ceremonies) on infinite repeat would drive any person insane — and many steps simply shouldn’t be celebrated — but all can be acknowledged.  These are part of ascending the steps of life.  As a survivor, it is important to recognize this — that graduation is never an ending — it is tied into the step by step process of being — into the next moment of life — part of the discovery of Who You Are Now.


I hope these thoughts have helped you to graduate in some way.  Please leave comments below.