Graduation is always a poignant time for me, of endings as well as beginnings. This year has been, shall we say, full of growing opportunities--big ones, like that one of my kids is now a driver and another is graduating high school, my sister remarried, my mom died last August after a painful and long struggle, and now my dad is remarrying in a couple of weeks.
It feels like I keep having multiple 6.0 personal earthquakes. I'm trying to grab on to something or someone, desperate to keep pressing forward even as the ground heaves.
I thought of these major life changes, and especially my mom, when I heard "For Good" from Wicked sung by this week high schoolers and the lyrics (again) touched me powerfully. (The words are below, or you might like also to hear it sung beautifully by Idina Menzel and Kristen Chenoweth on Youtube by clicking play below.)
(Glinda): I've heard it said that people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn and we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them and we help them in return.
Well, I don't know if I believe that's true,
But I know I'm who I am today because I knew you!
Like a comet pulled from orbit as it passes the sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder halfway through the wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you, I have been changed for good.
(Elphaba): It well may be that we will never meet again
In this lifetime, so let me say before we part:
So much of me is made of what I learned from you
You'll be with me like a handprint on my heart
And now whatever way our stories end
I know you have rewritten mine by being my friend...
Like a ship blown from its mooring by a wind off the sea
Like a seed dropped by a sky bird in a distant wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you,
(Glinda): Because I knew you,
(Both): I have been changed for good.
(Elphaba): And just to clear the air
I ask forgiveness for the things I've done you blame me for.
(Glinda): But then, I guess we know there's blame to share
(Both): And none of it seems to matter anymore.
(Glinda): Like a comet pulled from orbit as it passes the sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder halfway through the wood.
(Elphaba): Like a ship blown from its mooring by a wind off the sea
Like a seed dropped by a sky bird in a distant wood.
(Both): Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
I do believe I have been changed for the better
(Glinda): And because I knew you...
(Elphaba): Because I knew you...
(Both): Because I knew you... I have been changed for good.
Mom was the wind that blew my ship, the one who rewrote my story every day of my childhood, the sun who pulled my comet, the boulder in my stream. She changed the course of my life in immeasurable ways.
In the last few months of her life, she would cry, "I don't know how to die. It's so different than I thought it would be." What can you say to that? The best I could come up with was, "You're living one day at a time like everyone else, and all you can do is make the best of each day you're given."
That's all any of us have, really: today. And when we graduate from life-- it's a lot like graduating school. You go to school, or through the busy-ness of life, every day, until one day...you just don't anymore.
Why? Because you've apparently done everything you can at your current level, and it's time to move up to greater lessons and bigger things.
For something to begin, something has to end. Life moves forward even while the ground beneath us shakes. We keep on living--or dying!--one day at a time.
Take a breath. Take a step forward, even if it's dark. Maybe it has to be, or we would be overwhelmed by all of the amazing things headed our way. Grab on to someone. We can do this together. A door opens, a door closes.
And then, celebrate--it's graduation time!
Like a comet pulled from orbit as it passes the sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder halfway through the wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you, I have been changed for good.
(Elphaba): It well may be that we will never meet again
In this lifetime, so let me say before we part:
So much of me is made of what I learned from you
You'll be with me like a handprint on my heart
And now whatever way our stories end
I know you have rewritten mine by being my friend...
Like a ship blown from its mooring by a wind off the sea
Like a seed dropped by a sky bird in a distant wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you,
(Glinda): Because I knew you,
(Both): I have been changed for good.
(Elphaba): And just to clear the air
I ask forgiveness for the things I've done you blame me for.
(Glinda): But then, I guess we know there's blame to share
(Both): And none of it seems to matter anymore.
(Glinda): Like a comet pulled from orbit as it passes the sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder halfway through the wood.
(Elphaba): Like a ship blown from its mooring by a wind off the sea
Like a seed dropped by a sky bird in a distant wood.
(Both): Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
I do believe I have been changed for the better
(Glinda): And because I knew you...
(Elphaba): Because I knew you...
(Both): Because I knew you... I have been changed for good.
Mom was the wind that blew my ship, the one who rewrote my story every day of my childhood, the sun who pulled my comet, the boulder in my stream. She changed the course of my life in immeasurable ways.
In the last few months of her life, she would cry, "I don't know how to die. It's so different than I thought it would be." What can you say to that? The best I could come up with was, "You're living one day at a time like everyone else, and all you can do is make the best of each day you're given."
That's all any of us have, really: today. And when we graduate from life-- it's a lot like graduating school. You go to school, or through the busy-ness of life, every day, until one day...you just don't anymore.
Why? Because you've apparently done everything you can at your current level, and it's time to move up to greater lessons and bigger things.
For something to begin, something has to end. Life moves forward even while the ground beneath us shakes. We keep on living--or dying!--one day at a time.
Take a breath. Take a step forward, even if it's dark. Maybe it has to be, or we would be overwhelmed by all of the amazing things headed our way. Grab on to someone. We can do this together. A door opens, a door closes.
And then, celebrate--it's graduation time!
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