Last week my son graduated with, what he's thinking, is the first of possibly several college degrees. And because life is not something you can always count on, I was unable to attend. I would have much preferred sitting on the hard benches on Temple Square watching the festivities unfold, than what I was really doing...in the E.R. getting an I.V. That's a story for another time.
Since I couldn't go, we tried using all that fancy technology to do the next best thing...my wife FaceTimed the ceremony while I was at home. Since we've never done this before, we weren't sure if it would even work.
Turns out it didn't work very well at all.
We thought maybe I could see my son on the big monitors, but there was no way for me to see anything. I did hear them call out his name.
After, my son had me pose for a picture, then he took a picture holding up his phone with a picture of me in it so I could be included in family photos. That was nice of him. He's thoughtful like that.
I didn't attend the graduation, and plans to include me only worked marginally at best, but I felt I was a part of it and I was proud of what my son had done and his excitement over graduating was infectious. He's planning on continuing his higher education at another school. I don't know all his plans--I don't know if even he does. It's an exciting time to be alive, to be young with options. And on a spring Friday morning, I was a part of that excitement, too.
Well...kind of.
