We had anticipated spring 2014 ever since Emma entered high school and we realized that 2014 was the year we would celebrate two graduates in the class of 2014 - Emma from college, and Sarah from high school. We imagined the big bash we would throw to celebrate this great time for our family. So there was an extra layer of bittersweet as we celebrated Sarah's graduation from Lauralton on Sunday. The absence of our Emma who never made that high school milestone, never mind the college milestone we had anticipated celebrating this spring; but also the spectacular presence and accomplishment of Sarah whose graduation from Lauralton marks so much more than the earning of a simple diploma.
Thank you to all of you who have walked a stretch of the rocky road with us over these past years. You share in this celebration which is still sweet, despite the absence of one so very missed. Below are the tributes/toasts Peter and I gave to Sarah at her party, and a video of memories. I'm sure we embarrassed her, but she took it very well.
One final note. I was also missing my parents on graduation day and was remembering how much my father liked the name we chose for Sarah. "I can hear it on graduation day," he said. "Sarah Lillian von Euler. Classy!"
Nancy's Tribute:
I suppose
at this stage of a child’s life, most parents would look back and reflect
proudly on the important lessons they had taught their child; but as I
reflected, I couldn’t help but note the important things that Sarah had taught
me. I’d like to share some of the most valuable lessons with all of you.
One of the
things Sarah did not teach me was how to put together a toast or a roast, or
whatever this is, without shamelessly borrowing from overused formats, so I’m
going to offer up my list of valued lessons a la Letterman in a top 10 list.
Number 10!
– Popular Music. I’m showing my age by calling it popular music, but so be it.
Whenever Sarah gets into my car she turns off NPR, plugs in her phone and
treats me to the music in her iTunes library, while patiently answering my
questions about who I’m listening to and what else they’ve done. Without Sarah,
I might have missed an entire decade of music while in the NPR zone. Instead, I
am a well-rounded adult who recognizes the voices of both Ofeibia Quist-Arcton
and Ariana Grande.
Number 9! –
Ordering Coffee. Having not grown up in the coffee-obsessed culture we live in
now, I have trouble negotiating the complex array of sizes, flavorings and
other options on the typical coffee house menu. Sarah, on the other hand, is a
pro. In a Starbucks, Sarah can impress by ordering a grande mocha polka
latte-chino while I, on the other hand, have people snickering because I have asked
for a tall blonde. Apparently, you should include the word roast, a tall blonde
ROAST. That was an important lesson.
Number 8! –
The Art of Commuting – I commuted to New York via Metro North for grad school
and certainly mastered the science of commuting, but Sarah has taught me the
art commuting. Sarah could get up at 6:50 and make a 7:15 train! She would roll
out of bed fully-dressed in her uniform. As we know, Lauralton is an all-girls
school, so she didn’t need to brush her hair. I think she brushed her teeth. Even with this slim window, we would
carve out time to go through the Dunkin Donuts drive-thru and practice our
coffee ordering. We would get to the train station with just minutes to spare, but
Sarah would spend all of those minutes in the car, texting and finishing up the
morning’s lesson in popular music. Not until the train was pulling into the
station, would Sarah begin casually tucking away her phone, putting the straw
in her iced coffee, pulling on her jacket or sweatshirt, gathering up her
backpack, and walking towards the train. The last of the boarding passengers
were typically already on the train by the time she reached the top of the ramp
to the platform - and this is when it got really exciting – she would walk
across the now empty platform and step inside the train just in time to have
the doors close immediately behind her! Her timing was impeccable – or the
conductors were patient – I’m not really sure which, but it certainly made for
a heart-pumping start of the day for me!
Number 7! –
What Phones are For! For years I labored under the misconception that phones
were for talking, but Sarah has taught me that phones are for texting and
surfing the internet and listening to music, etc., etc. Actual calls should apparently
only be made when texting and emails have failed. Peter has not completely learned
this lesson. He reached Sarah in the car one day (I was driving) and after
Sarah got off the phone with him she said, “Oh my God! He calls and he wants to
stay on the phone and talk to you!”
Number 6! –
A Thing or Not a Thing – This is not a riff on Shakespeare, but rather a new
system of classification that does not share the limitations of prior
classification systems like the periodic table or Linnaeus’ biological
taxonomy. The Thing and Not a Thing system incorporates such esoteric concepts
as fashion, taste, and even ethics, and is, therefore, much harder to master.
But Sarah is a serious student of classification and is as close to a Thing –
Not a Thing scholar, as I believe one can be. Peter and I have tried hard to
catch up. We have spent many a dinner conversation discussing whether some
action or object should be classified as a Thing or Not a Thing, but we almost
always have to defer to Sarah’s better judgment. It’s confusing. Sometimes
someone will have done something, which you would think would make it a Thing,
but because it was idiotic that they did it, it is Not a Thing. Here’s one that
I have mastered – Dunkin Donuts cookie dough flavored iced coffee – On the menu
- Not a Thing!
Number 5! –
Spray Tans – Not a Thing! – This is a lesson that Sarah taught me just
recently. It was the morning of Prom Day and we were sitting in the car at the
train station with a full 3 ½ minutes to spare. Sarah was duly ensconced in
social media, keeping tabs on the news regarding manicures, make-up, up-dos and
who was most likely to be annoyingly late for pictures, when suddenly her head
popped up and she started frantically scanning the station parking lot. “Is
everything okay?” I said. She turned to me with great seriousness and said,
“Someone has a bad spray tan!” I was puzzled. “How do you know that? Did
someone text you?” “No! I overheard someone ask her friend if she had showered
yet. That can only mean one thing. She has a bad spray tan!” Now see, if I had
overheard that conversation, I would have assumed that the friend smelled bad. But I was unaware of the algorithm – Prom minus
shower equals bad spray tan; and this is what worries me. Sarah is heading off
to college in just a couple of months, and I clearly still have so much to
learn!
Number 4! –
Social Media – Let me just put it out there. No adult should venture into the
world of social media without teenage supervision. I know that as the parent, I
should have set limits and guidelines for Sarah’s use of all things Internet,
but the fact of the matter is, she understands it way better than I do. Sarah
has gently tried to teach us texting etiquette, but people who learned to type
on an IBM Selectrix have trouble adjusting to the new rules. Punctuation and
sentences starting with capital letters? Not a Thing! Messages sent in all
caps? Not a Thing unless it is a declaration of war. I did not know that,
exclamation point!
Just when I
was mastering Facebook, Sarah had pretty much abandoned it for Twitter and
Instagram. I’m still not sure I get Twitter, but in an effort to keep up with
my child, I set up an account and launched my first tweet. I think it was
something like “Look at me, I’m tweeting #oldfartstweet.” It might have been
really embarrassing to my family, but I didn’t have any followers. Several
months later, Sarah and her friends tried to re-launch my Twitter identity by
sending out a carefully crafted tweet, sure to garner the attention of adoring
teenage fans everywhere. Judging by their hysterics, I gather I was being very
funny. I can’t say for sure because I didn’t understand what “I” was saying.
Again –nothing. Sarah, always the problem-solver, suggested that what I needed
to do to get some followers was to follow more people myself. So, I dutifully began
following some of the great thinkers of our day: Andy Cohen, Bethenny Frankel
and Nene Leakes. If you don’t watch Bravo TV – well, I feel sorry for you. This
sage advice from Sarah led to one of the greatest social media moments of my
life.
I was
taking the long train ride back from DC by myself after a conference this past
February. I was flipping through my twitter timeline, something I had only
recently learned to do, when I came across a kvetching tweet, by Andy Cohen. He
was complaining about a plane trip west that wasn’t going well. “ Spending 9
hours on a plane only to land in L.A.,” he kveeted. I wittily replied to his
tweet, “Don’t complain. I’m spending 5 hours on a train and I’m landing in
Bridgeport.” And then something amazing happened – Andy Cohen replied “LOL
@nancyvone!”
When I had
composed myself I texted Sarah to tell her about the tweet from Andy. She
texted right back, “That’s great, Mom. I’ll check out your Twitter feed.” I found out later that she then turned to
Peter and said, “That’s so cute. Mom thinks Andy Cohen tweeted at her.”
Now it’s
true, there had been a incident a month earlier when I thought that Tom
Colicchio had replied to my tweet and it turned out to only be his restaurant,
but when she checked this time she discovered that it was, in fact, THE Andy
Cohen! She texted me again. “I saw it Mom. Wow! That’s so cool! I’m going to
re-tweet it. BTW, you’re not supposed to use punctuation in your hashtags.”
Not a
Thing!
Number 3! –
Perseverance – On a more serious note, over the years Sarah has taught me a lot
about perseverance and this past year was no exception. Sarah was blessed this
year with a new field hockey coach who was so singularly focused on winning the
state championship that she didn’t let petty distractions, like humanity, get
in her way. She was a tough gal to please and an even tougher gal to talk to.
When frustration was running particularly high, I suggested to Sarah that there
would be no shame in quitting a team that had ceased to be fun or rewarding. But
she would have none of that. “I’m not a quitter, Mom,” she said, and indeed,
she is not. Sarah used her humor to rescue the season for herself and for many
discouraged teammates. While Coach Kati was holding up signs with plays for the
starters on the field, Sarah was behind her holding up signs with plays for the
stalwart benchwarmers. My favorite was the picture of the nun with her hands
folded in prayer, signifying that they should all start saying their Hail
Mary’s. I’m pretty sure that’s what got them to the championship. At the end of
the season banquet, Sarah gave a hysterical speech that brought down the house
and Coach Kati now follows Sarah on Twitter. Just sayin’
Number 2! –
Courage. When I read the description of Sarah’s proposed camp trip to Bolivia I
thought it sounded exhilarating - like roller coaster exhilarating, which is to
say, scary. But if Sarah was going to be brave enough to go, we needed to be
brave enough to let her. I was most scared about the time she would spend in
the Andes, battling frigid overnight temperatures and extreme altitude. That
part of the trip was, in fact, very hard. There were several mornings when she
woke up vomiting and then had to hike the whole day. I breathed a sigh of
relief when she emailed us after that stage of the trip and was heading off for
what I imagined was the more serene rainforest portion of the trip. Thankfully,
I didn’t know anything about the piranha and crocodile-infested rivers, roads
blockaded by protesters, and the need to abandon their vehicles and hitchhike
to their destination until Sarah had safely arrived back on American soil,
feeling great about the challenges she had stared down.
Everybody
recognizes and appreciates that kind of courage – courage in the face of
obvious danger or hardship; but Sarah has also shown the other kind of courage that
people often overlook – the day-to-day courage it takes to stay in the game and
play it the best you can even when life has dealt you some really bad cards. No
one gets this more than Peter and I do, and we have tremendous respect and
admiration for the way she has bravely and honestly played the cards she has
been dealt.
Number 1!
Wisdom – You can study a lot and get smart, but wisdom is a gift, and Sarah has
it. Sarah has the ability to boil down the most complex ideas or situations
into simple, clear statements of truth. So many times she has uttered something
that has stopped me in my tracks and made me think, “Now those are words to live
by” or “True dat!” (Sarah taught me that phrase). Today, Sarah was handed her
high school diploma, but the God’s honest truth is she already has a Ph.D. in
life.
You may or
may not have noticed that your invitation had a picture of an acorn on it. In
part, that was an inside joke - a reference to the fact, that on the bus ride
to the state field hockey championships, Sarah calmed the nerves and stirred
the souls of her teammates with a powerful rendition of the Saugatuck
Elementary School song, Mighty Oaks from
Tiny Acorns Grow. But we also thought it was very fitting for the occasion.
Sarah, you entered the world as a preemie – the tiniest of acorns, and you have
indeed grown into a mighty, mighty oak. We love you so much and are so very proud
of you. Congratulations!!!
Okay, Sarah, I will keep this
brief. I just have a short song that I
want to sing to you. If you could just
come up here so I can sing it to you…no?
Actually, I wanted us to do a dance that you taught me when you were
about two…. but that might embarrass you, and I might hurt myself…and that might embarrass you.
But here’s the problem: Mom has already taken a lot of the best
material. She was funny parent AND
sentimental parent all in one. That
leaves me very little room as a parent.
So, I’m going to do what anyone would do when he is at a loss for words. I’m going to steal someone else’s.
A few weeks back, your
English teacher had the nerve to give you an assignment that was due on the
last day of school: recite a poem. Perhaps she was unaware that that was not a
thing. However, she did allow you to
choose your own poem. The poem you chose
turned out to be one I knew and loved. I
loved it more, though, when I realized that it was really a poem about you, my
amazing daughter. Now the poet is not
exactly one who you would call famous, but she has a lot to say about the kind
of fame to which we should all aspire.
Famous
Naomi Nye
The river is famous to the
fish.
The loud voice is famous to
silence,
Which knew it would inherit
the earth
Before anybody said so.
The cat sleeping on the fence
is famous to the birds
Watching him from the
birdhouse.
The tear is famous, briefly,
to the cheek.
The idea you carry close to
your bosom
Is famous to your bosom.
The boot is famous to the
earth,
More famous than the dress
shoe,
Which is famous only to
floors.
The bent photograph is famous
to the one who carries it
And not at all famous to the
one who is pictured.
I want to be famous to
shuffling men
Who smile while crossing
streets,
Sticky children in grocery
lines,
Famous as the one who smiled
back.
I want to be famous in the
way a pulley is famous,
Or a buttonhole, not because
it did anything spectacular,
But because it never forgot
what it could do.
Personally, Sarah, I think
it’s spectacular how you have lived your life, especially these past five
years. And since I agree that someone
who really lives that way, never forgetting what she can do, deserves some
fame, here is nine and a half minutes of well-deserved fame. In this, I think everyone will see one of the
other great lessons that Sarah has learned:
Whenever, in life, you find
it hard to muster that smile, try making a really goofy face. It’s bound to make other people smile.
Nancy, you continue to amaze and impress. Huge congratulations to Sarah (and her parents!).
ReplyDeleteNancy, I just reread this. I think the Andy Cohen twitter story is an all-time favorite! Carla xo
ReplyDelete