Graduations, Moving On

This week is the last one of the year for my volunteering in this classroom at Lacoochee School. Bernice, Kimberly and Elissa are showing you strawberries they are about to pop into their mouths. Going there week after week has been such fun, such affirmation for me. I think I have brought some joy and adventure to their classroom (and also many fruits and vegetables!). We have made clay objects and painted and constructed and made unimaginable messes we all loved. We have collected bugs and watched flowers. I have given away books, rocks, trinkets. I have looked at the scars on small backs that tell of abuse. I have held many small grimy hands. We have read a lot of books and played a lot of games. When I come there is no mention of FCAT.
So they are moving on, and so am I. I will see some of them at my summer art camp; others I will hug in the corridors next year and they will tell me what they are doing.
And, too, my own family is moving on. My daughter graduated from Law School last weekend, and my oldest grandchild will soon be graduating from high school. Quincy, now six, is graduating from years of speech therapy.( Now he talks all the time!) These are events to make us proud.
And so we keep on keeping on, worrying about the family things, always alert to what's happening in the world and trying to make sense of it. The Rapture didn't happen as expected by some this week but still, my own rapture is every single day in this place in the Green Swamp where the swallow tail kites soar and the purple passion flowers are in full bloom and friends are just around the corner.