Times Like These

Today, I sat on a sports field in Harrisonburg, VA while hundreds of young people walked to their seats for their graduation ceremony. It was windy, but the sun began to peek through the clouds just as the graduates queued up to march between the rows of chairs where their family and friends waited. As the graduates marched by in their purple robes, holding onto their caps in the stiff breeze, the clouds blew away and the warmth of the sun and the blue of the sky reflected the delight of the graduates, their loved ones, and (probably) their professors.

My youngest daughter was walking in the ceremony, marking the end of her undergraduate education. Her curly, blonde hair (recently cut into a cute chin-length bob) was the easiest thing to spot amid the hundreds of others in the same cap and gown. I was happy for her - college presented her with quite a few challenges, and she deserves recognition for her hard work. I felt some relief in knowledge that she had gotten this far, maneuvering the many hazards of youth and adolescence as she becomes a contributing adult member of society.

As I watched these graduates and their families, knowing that many others were probably sharing my thoughts, I was brought up short by another thought. There is another family that will not have this experience this spring, or ever. They will not watch, smiling, as their daughter walks with friends on this ceremonial rite of passage. While I was watching my daughter, they were preparing to bury theirs. My throat ached and my eyes filled with tears – tears for their unbearable pain and for the loss of all the things their daughter would have contributed to this world.

All week, I have followed the death of UVA student Yeardley Love at the hands of her former boyfriend at the end of her undergraduate career. I have lived with the knowledge that this could have happened to one of my girls, that the desire of one human being to control another sometimes ends with the ultimate power and control of murder. I have been disgusted with press attempts to relate this homicide with alcohol abuse, when the truth is that it was an individual’s need to control another’s behavior that caused him to repeatedly slam her head violently into a wall. Standing at the beginning of my daughter’s graduation, I was overwhelmed with sadness.

Women are raised with the knowledge that the majority of the other half of the population has the capability to harm us, if they desire. They are typically bigger and stronger than we are, socialized to be aggressive. However, the large majority of them don’t. They may break our hearts, they may not do what we want them to do, but they are good partners and fathers and brothers and coworkers and friends. It’s the ones that cannot have healthy relationships that ruin it for the rest.

I have raised two daughters to adulthood, and am just beginning to move two sons very slowly to pre-teen years. Today, I was reminded how important it is to teach them how to treat others and what it is their right to expect from relationships. A graduation may seem a strange time to be reminded of such parental duty, but it seems to me that it is a perfect time. At these times where we remember where we’ve come from and look forward to where we’re going, I am reminded of my obligations to all children to do my best to help make the world a better place – and I hope that all those graduates have the same commitment, because I really need their help.