Graduation 2014

Saturday, after what seemed like only a year from first dropping him off at preschool, my son Sam graduated from Mathews High School.

When the first of only two grandchildren in the Vogel family graduates, we make sure to celebrate appropriately.  Middle Sis flew in from Georgia, and Baby Sis came from Richmond.

Middle Sis

My mother is the only one of our immediate family who did not graduate from
Mathews High School; she went to Gloucester High.
 Mathews was originally part of Gloucester.
  So that's close enough.

My mother was there in the hospital room when Sam was born.  As a toddler, he'd happily go from our Northern Virginia house to Mathews with her when she'd come to pick him up for a weekend.
There was no such thing as separation anxiety for him, particularly where Nanny was concerned. 

There might be one person in this bunch who is starting to feel some separation anxiety.
But she's also very happy.

L to R, representing MHS classes of 1984, 2014, 1982 and 1988.

Emily Brown, who I want to adopt as my own, was co-valedictorian.
Her father informed me they weren't ready to give her up for adoption just yet.
But I still keep asking.  

When Sam was born, there were complications involving oxygen deprivation that caused the nurses to whisk him away immediately.  When the pediatrician finally stopped by to give me an update, which didn't sound particularly great, I asked, "Will there be any long-term effects?"
"We can't know for sure," was her very somber response.
This is Reason 4,562 that I am grateful he successfully made it to this day.

Two Mr. Sandersons:  The one on the left coached my mother and me when we played on the Cobbs Creek softball team in the summer league back in the 1980s.  The Mr. Sanderson on the right, his son, was one of Sam's Governor's School teachers.  They are both great men.

The Mathews High School Class of 1982 was well represented.  Here are my classmates Catherine Miller Owens, whose niece Amanda Miller graduated, and Lucy Ellen Smith, who was there to support a graduate whose parents couldn't be there.  I love these girls.
(Middle and Baby Sis hover in the background, pondering the meaning of life.)

My Two Sams
Sam Vogel graduated from Mathews High in 1958.

If only her parents would let me adopt her, I could call this a family photo.
Emily has a very bright future ahead and will attend University of California, Berkeley.

After graduation came the celebratory dinner that included grilled tuna, marinated flank steak,
 a CB Mother-made salad, kale, baked potatoes and, of course, champagne.
Middle Sis also made her world-famous macaroni and cheese.
(If the American Legion Hall can claim to have world-famous breakfasts, I'm sure I can use that descriptor for her macaroni and cheese. Regardless, if it isn't world-famous yet, it should be.)

The ingredients list for the recipe of my emotions, now that graduation is over, is complex.

I am grateful, honored, proud, relieved, humbled, privileged, happy, sad, scared, exhausted--lots of things.

  

Most of all, I am grateful.

I don't take anything for granted and am extremely grateful we all made it to this point.

Next stop, college.