Of Graduation and Duct Tape
The music starts, and we all rise as the graduates enter. They parade slowly past us, dignified in traditional caps and gowns. I recognize most of them from their years at the elementary school where I was their librarian, even though their features have changed. So many things about them have changed since they walked out of my classroom at the end of fifth grade, seven years ago.
Some of their names I remember, some I cannot. There have been so many students, so many faces.
Even so, I recognize the boys who sat in the aisle in front of the football section every morning before the bell rang, debating players and teams as they pulled book after book from the shelf. They made it to the state playoffs this year.
I see the girls who loved anything to do with fairies and unicorns and dragons. I searched and searched for fantasy books in every reading level to keep them coming back for more.
Photo from Unsplash
Ah, here comes the boy who checked out nothing but outdoor skills books and magazines from third grade until fifth, preferring books on fishing. And right beside him, the kid who requested instruction books on how to create things out of duct tape.
They continue on, their eyes focused in front of them, on what is to come. They don’t see me there, on the sideline. I’m just one in a crowd of people who watched them grow from preschooler to senior. Do they remember my name? Do they remember the books we read together? The library, the laughter, the lessons?
To be honest, probably not.
On one hand, the end of the school year is always exciting for educators as well as students. On the other hand, I always knew that some of my students I’d never see again. It was hardest to say goodbye to fifth-graders. I had known many of them since they first came for story hour as preschoolers. They would transfer to middle school, where they’d have someone else as their librarian.
And at the end of every year, I found myself questioning whether I had done enough while they were in elementary school to reach the non-readers, to touch the students who struggle in school or at home. To make a difference.
One year, on the last day of school, the library door opened. In walked a fifth-grader whose home life was shaped by poverty and alcohol. He was not a reader. His favorite thing to browse in the library was the Guinness Book of World Records. My heart twisted with the same old questions. What did the future hold for him once he left our school? Had I taught him all I could? What more should I have done for him?
“Here,” he said, and dropped a circle of silver duct tape into my outstretched palm. “It’s a bracelet. I made it for you.”
The graduates file into their chairs, and sit, and at this distance, it’s hard to make out the individuals. They blur into a group dressed in our school colors. How much of their identity is rooted in this group they are part of? What have they learned from the relationships they shared in their time together?
Then some stand, and separate from the rest. They join the choir for the anthem, raising their voices in a harmony that sends chills of delight dancing up my arms. Others participate in the band, offering to all the product of hours of practice and instruction on their chosen instrument.
The salutatorian steps to the microphone to reminisce about times and experiences they’ve shared. She is followed by the valedictorian who speaks about the ways their class can impact the world. And then, these people whose whole lives have been spent in a post- 9-11 world, stride forward to claim their diploma in the shadow of a global pandemic.
They file out to form a reception line. How can I tell them all that I wish for them and their lives? Can I say something in the space of a single handshake that will leave them with a smile, a life-changing inspiration, a new sense of purpose, or an unforgettable nugget of wisdom?
The truth is, I can’t.
My hope is that they found those things in the books in our library. The truths hidden in the fiction. The smiles in a joke book. The heroes and heroines who overcame the same kind of challenges they face today, so they forever recognize the heroic in themselves and others. I hope they learned to seek information, and grow ever more curious about the universe and the amazing people and places it holds. I hope the stories inspired their imagination, and a deep appreciation for living things.
I have faith that they carry it all with them. Because books change people. The insights and knowledge shape the persons they become: the athletes, the introverts, the artists, the scientists. Those who love to build things more than read about them. And all the others who refuse to be defined by any group.
I cling to the belief that the small part I played in their lives merged with all the other relationships and experiences that helped shape them. Shaped them into people who successfully navigated their way to this academic goal and rite of passage.
