College Graduation Announcements

I guess I've always been sentimental, but when I saw, printed out before my eyes, my son's college graduation announcements, it brought a tear to my eye. Somehow, in all the hussle and hubbub, the drama and also the good times of his final college years, it had never occurred to me that my son was going out into the real world to make a life for himself until the moment when I saw those college graduation announcements, sitting there stacked neatly on the desk and waiting to be mailed.

I had designed the college graduation announcements myself, trying to put a touch of the personal into them. I had looked at all the websites which promised to make something spiffy and brightly lettered, something professional looking to give your college graduation announcements a touch of pizazz which they wouldn't have when made by hand, but I had ultimately rejected them and turned to my neglected calligraphy. I hand-lettered the first college graduation announcement, putting hours into getting the look of it, the texture of the strokes, the quality perfect, and then sent it off to the printer to be made into a mass run of printouts.

Of course, seeing the college graduation announcements, our friends and families probably won't understand everything that went into them – how all my hopes and dreams for my sons future are recorded on that paper. A less careful eye might even think that the college graduation announcements were not hand made or even hand lettered, but designed on a machine. You see, I have more or less mastered calligraphy in the last few years, to such an exacting degree that people often mistake my work for that of a machine. Will they understand that I made the college graduation announcements myself?

I suppose it doesn't matter, because ultimately it wasn't for them, but for me. Of course, the purpose of the college graduation announcements was to inform others, but the time spent making them, and the work that went into it, was an occasion for me to reflect on my son and how much he means to me. The time spent raising him, the fun we've had together, and also the occasional fight all ran through my head, and I found myself so happy to see that my son has grown up to be a fine young man. And that is the greatest gift a parent can receive.