Each of my three children has a very different graduation story. My middle child, Chase, had the most traditional time of it, having seamlessly transitioned from British A-Levels in China, to a regular American high school for eleventh and twelfth grades. For his grand high school finale, he marched across the stage of the Jon M. Huntsman Center with both pomp and circumstance, his red robe blingy and jingling with cords and medals representing all kinds of long hours and A.P. courses. Thereafter he enjoyed a teppanyaki dinner with the family, followed by Bountiful High’s customary all-night blowout bash for the graduating class. In the photos he’s standing with his arm around me, a very proud mom who was secretly ashamed that my head was still a little baldy from chemo, as though reality had left a greasy smudge on the big day.

My oldest, Abby, also wore a red robe, but she graduated from Dulwich College high school in Suzhou, China, the only western student in her school. Every year the students took a whole class devoted entirely to researching and applying to universities. At commencement, as each member of her graduating class slowly crossed the stage, the university they would attend in the fall was projected larger than life on the wall behind them. In China, once you attend any international school for any amount of time, even if it is within China, you are no longer welcome in the Chinese educational system. Consequently, every one of Abby’s classmates was scattering across the world.

Dulwich was brilliant at launching their students into universities, but somehow the idea of a school dance had rather slipped their minds. In their defense, they did cater to Chinese students whose only exposure to the concept of “prom” was probably the occasional cheesy teen American movie, so it wasn’t much of a priority. But Abby had grown up with one foot in China and the other in America, so she’d gotten rather attached to the idea.

“We need a graduation prom,” she told the administration.

“Good idea, you do it,” they said.

So, she did.

When she walked across that stage, the girl who spearheaded the graduation prom was very different than the shy Utah girl who entered the school on the first day. In the photos I’m smiling with Abby, so proud of her. A tempest was brewing around the edges, but I thought I could keep it a secret. I still possessed all my hair, but I had discovered the lump, and various other bits of unfortunate information. I didn’t yet know I had cancer, but reality’s greasy stain was hovering just outside the view of the camera lens.

In the end I couldn’t keep my secrets, and the winds threatening out of view in Abby’s graduation photos eventually swept us all into hurricane force gales. This year my youngest, Porter, will graduate having weathered far greater storms than a pandemic. In high school he found his saving grace in music and theater, and when school was abruptly closed in March, his troupe was two days from performing Anne Frank, of all things. He was already cast in the spring musical, Secret Garden, and had long been rehearsing the music. Read More