Graduation is in about five hours. The seniors will start arriving in droves in about two. Three hours from now, I will be walking loops around this building, helping make sure seniors are where they need to be.

One more good-bye.

A year ago, Peter was still with us. I think this was the weekend we met at the mall. I lightly held his hand to keep him from eating all of the donut holes at one time. I remember the warmth in his fingers. Their light fragility, the sense that their texture, their grip was diminishing. I told him about my novel. How it was dedicated to him. I told him about how I wanted to go back to the creek. I told him I loved him.

No. My seniors are not dying. Nor am I. We are all moving forward into our own futures with grace and joy and some wavering confidence.

But I am standing at the beginning of a newish path and feeling the edges of my past ebb away from me. I am not forgetting Peter. I am not forgetting my students or my years advising newspaper. I am not letting go of any of it.

But I am wishing it farewell.

I love that word. “Farewell.”

Fare. To live. To thrive. And to do it in a healthy state of mind. To do it with goodness. To be treated with goodness and compassion.

I have passed on materials. Received materials. Written a syllabus that I keep staring at and wondering about and fretting over. Ah. All the verbs. All the prepositions.

I have eleven weeks to finalize decisions. To sculpt and scaffold activities and assignments. To photocopy material (oh, wait, did I fail to mention that I’ve already started to do that?). This is not my first time teaching dual. Just my first time teaching dual at an accelerated rate. That’s fine. I’ll learn.

This morning, though, I struggled. Graduation day is here. I have worked with at least 15 seniors for all four years of their high school careers. We traveled that road during my darkest and most painful experiences. Their graduation is my graduation. I survived. I made it. And I wrote about it. Somewhat.

When I look over my shoulders, I can see my regrets pooling and hovering in the mud like slippery foot-stepping stones. The mud wiggles up and over the stone. The stone rises above the mud, as though the path breathed and tried to help the moments escape. And then, in a slow exhale, the stone sinks a bit, the mud drinks the edges, slips over the top.

But even more, I see the luminscent marbled bridges of my successes. Beautiful aquaducts in which clean water pours fresh over the paths. Columned, level, perfect straightaways that feed into gardens, siphon into oceans. Trickles into a creek that pedals water and leaves through rock filled pools. A mud dauber hovers. Its jointed body loose over the sun-reflecting water. Its turreted nest rises on the creek’s other side.

Peter was a teacher. I remember him talking about graduations he organized when he was the senior class sponsor. I remember attending his son’s and daughter’s graduation. The silvery, three horned soccer horn Dad bought them when they attended FC Bayern games. Peter gave that horn to my oldest child. I don’t know if it exists anymore.

For twenty-six years, I have attended graduations. Helped plan graduations. Worked in and read names at graduations. Now, I have the quiet duty of making sure the graduates process and recess without distraction or delay. I get to wear my regular clothing, not a robe and stole. I get to walk in my own skin and say my own words and stay in the shadows where I like to live.

And as the graduates walk past me, gripping their diploma covers, gleeful that they threw their hats but kept the tassels, I will smile. Weep. And fare them well.

Love you. Mean it.