They Do Grow Up

This Saturday my granddaughter is graduating from high school. Imagine! It seems so recent that she was so young in so many ways. But I've just gotten feedback from a couple of the other adults in her life that tells me how much she's grown.

As a close relative, sometimes it's hard to judge. Oh, you see the inches in height and the physical maturity. If you're lucky, you see a more mature response in conversations. Yet it's so easy to keep the memory of that tiny girl so close that it blinds you to all the changes taking place, until suddenly you're given the gift of seeing her through somebody else's eyes.

We both worked for the same boss at the auction house. He can be great with patience with teenagers, tolerant of some of their growing pains, letting them work through issues and learn how to do the job despite them. He called me a few weeks ago to let me know, among other things, how proud he is of her.

It came in contrast with another employee's actions. In looking for another, better job, this other employee didn't let Doug know that he used him as a reference. The first Doug heard of it was when he got called to give the reference. Jordan, when it was her turn, called him, offered him an apology for needing a better job to help with college expenses and thus needing to leave this position. Then she asked him if she could use him as a reference. And yes, she landed the better job. Doug was very impressed by how she handled herself.

Her very last school choir concert was a couple weeks ago. While we were all leaving, I passed her choir director in the hallway and stopped a minute to tell her how much I was going to miss coming to these concerts. When she knew who I was, she let me know how much she appreciated Jordan in her class the last couple years, and how much help she had been. Just that evening, before the concert, Jordan arrived, saying she had nothing to do, and asking what she could to to help.

Of course, some of the kid and the attitude do stick around. Jordan's school is a charter school, started in an old warehouse building downtown, and later moved into a fancy new school built just for them. Jordan started in a class of 14 students, transferred mostly from the monster-sized giant high school with something like 600 in a class. Jordan did very well in the new environment. The lower level classes are quite respectable in size as the school's reputation has grown, and I tend to forget it's beginnings.

When Jordan was telling me about graduation, I was thinking more about my own, back in the day, when each student was allowed two guests to witness the event. I asked her how many people it was OK to invite to come, knowing her mom's side of the family was already sizeable, and hoping more than just myself from her father's side could attend. In a voice heaping with all the scorn a teenager can apply to the foibles of the older generations, she reminded me, "Grandma, there's only 13 of us graduating! The more the merrier. There's a lot of space to fill."

We'll all be there with bells on, doing our part.