We spent this past weekend in Chicago, celebrating my oldest daughter Leah’s graduation from Northwestern University. What a wonderful celebration, after four wonderful, stressful, accomplished and emotional years of undergraduate work. My brother and sister-in-law joined us for the celebration and the high point was when Kelsey won (or would have won if there had been a contest!) for the longest distance traveled to come to a sibling graduation as she shlepped from Mozambique where she has been working under a grant for the summer. Graduations are such a bittersweet passage as the next stage of life is pondered. Leah will be heading off to Ann Arbor in the fall as she enters the University of Michigan’s esteemed law school, but I hope she holds on to the message that was delivered at her commencement this weekend–try new things, celebrate your success and your failures, bring your skills to help others, create a better future, and don’t let life get in the way or become an excuse for not nurturing your friendships.
