Last Day of School
Today was the last day of school for the year. Today was my last day of school as the School Admin. Today was Katherine's last day of school as a high school student, which makes it my last day of school as a school parent. That's a lot of "lasts".
We wrapped up this day of "lasts" with a Junior/Senior Banquet. This banquet is a school tradition at Trinity. A semi-formal event, it is an evening of catered dinner, celebrating the seniors, and some silliness. There are games, awards, laughter, and speeches by the graduates; part testimony, part reminiscence as they recount their years in school, reflect on who and what they are thankful for, lessons learned, and lives impacted. For Katherine, it's been 10 years at Trinity; 2nd through 12th grade with a skipped one along the way.
I have been to a half-dozen of these events. They can be funny. Emotional. Entertaining. And this night was all of those.
The games; part cringe-y, part funny included a competition to see what parent/child team knew each other the best. Patrick and I played this game during his senior banquet and we walked away with an easy win. Katherine and I got two out of six questions right - last place. Mostly designed to elicit laughter - which it totally did - the game was not an accurate reflection of just how well we actually know each other.
After 17 years of long talks processing difficult material as she navigated the treacherous waters of adolescence, teen years, social awkwardness, and self-awareness, I think I have a pretty deep understanding of who Katherine is. Unfortunately, that understanding didn't help us much in the game. And it never really translated into good insight for how to get her to do her homework or clean her room. Instead, I got a front-row seat to an amazing show as she grew and developed into the young lady at tonight's banquet.
Despite often crippling stage fright (many a piano recital was spent trying to coax her out of the bathroom), Katherine has emerged from her senior year having successfully completed Speech Class and performed (as a requirement of said speech class) an oral presentation for the Fine Arts Competition (14 Christian schools from around New England and New York) for which she took second place. Tonight, she blew all of those presentations out of the water.
Instructed to be ready to deliver an "impromptu" speech (picture celebrities on stage at the Oscars thanking their wife, directors, and agents) at the banquet, Katherine began to stress. At the banquet, the graduates were invited to the microphone in alphabetical order. The first senior took the mic and said, "We were instructed to prepare a testimony for this evening..." Katherine, with panic in her face, turned to us and said she didn't write a "testimony" (yes, her "impromptu" speech was carefully crafted and written out), she was going to get in trouble, she was - in her estimation - screwed. Silent tears and panic threatened to undo what I was reasonably certain was a perfectly acceptable speech for the evening. In hushed whispers we tried to talk her down. As the first senior continued rambling (he hadn't actually prepared anything), Katherine calmed and resigned to do the speech she had prepared.
She went to the mic, stood behind the podium, and began to speak. Her first words were nervous and shaky, but her lighthearted intro landed and the audience laughed...authentic, "that was funny" chuckles. Buoyed by the audience response, she continued. The next several minutes were a mix of earnest thanks and tear-producing laughter. Her reminiscences of amazing Trinity teachers connected with the other long-term Trinity students (there were juniors and seniors in the audience, and a few past graduates). Her reference to the changes in Administration over her years as a student was met with from-the-gut laughter by adults familiar with the frequent leadership changes experienced at the church and school. Indeed, Katherine saw six leadership changes during her years at Trinity. She shared how she connected with teachers (a kindred spirit in fellow introvert, Miss Brodfuehrer) and quoted valuable lessons she will remember long after graduation ("Just because you can, doesn't mean you should." ~Miss Cannon).
Parents, teachers, leaders, students. Her wit and sincerity, dotted with unvarnished truth, reach nearly everyone in the room. She spoke from the heart, inconspicuously glanced at her notes, and delivered a spot-on presentation perfect for the evening. She was simply amazing.
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