Graduation Part 2

Disclaimer.....
For safety reasons I can not show certain people and places.  Please excuse weirdly cropped pictures, blurred areas, and bodies without heads :) 


Before we were escorted to the auditorium for the Graduation, we could take pictures with Tim.  So I thought that I would share the one of our family.  I also labeled my siblings.  I know most who read this know who my brothers and sister are, but some of you don't.  It is sometimes nice to put a name and face together for future or past reference. 

 **We are missing Paul's wife and his two boys along with Kevin. They were not able to make it to Tim's Graduation.

The graduation ceremony was really quite beautiful (although I don't think Tim would use that word to describe it).  I loved in the beginning they announced that if there is a baby crying or a child being loud that it was OK, that the the graduates had missed those sounds of home for 6 months and they were a welcomed noise to hear, so please don't leave the auditorium.  It kind of took the seriousness of the event away and added a lot of warmth (at least for me).  


I know you all can guess what my eyes were doing during the whole graduation.  My mind always wanders back in time when Tim was called Timmy or Buddy, a time when he was much shorter, a lot less muscle, but the same sweet face.  I blink back the tears and here he is a grown man, walking across the stage to shake a very important man's hand.  And in that one moment in time, the long road, the hard work both physically and mentally was accomplished.  He had achieved what he set out to do years before.

It was funny, I found a kindred spirit in Tim's Mother-In-law, for as we both exited the auditorium, our eyes were both red, our cheeks were both tear stained and we both had smiles on our faces.  There was a group of 21 of us that had all traveled for this momentous event and I think we were the only two that looked like a hot mess.  The rest of the group all wore these huge smiles without tears.

Here is "Tim's group". There was 3 people that didn't go on stage for this picture.  2 were Tim's friends from Evanston (one of them used my camera to take this picture) and the other person was our cousin.  So this group represents (most) of Tim and Melissa's immediate family.  There is a lot of love represented here....

Later that night as I was laying in bed, listening to my children's soft breathing.  I thought about how my parents raised a little boy into manhood and how amazing it is to see where God has him at this time in his life and how proud they are of him.  And how I have three little people that Kev and I are trying to raise and wondering what God has planned for their lives.  It's humbling to think of, an overwhelming sense of responsibility for sure.  Comforting to know that God has their lives in his hands regardless of me and Kevin and all the mistakes we make along the way.  Curious as to what roads they are going to take... maybe even a little scared...