The country went in lock-down in early March. As Mother's Day (and many of our family birthdays) approached, we had to get creative to find a way to be together. I was quite nervous the whole time about the possibility of exposing my parents to the virus through any of us, so that took away some of the joy of being together. Plus, not being able to give each other a hug was hard (and I'm not even a hugging kind of person). But we still enjoyed actually being all together as a family to celebrate Mother's Day, my brother's birthday, my sister-in-law's birthday, and my birthday--which all took place between May 7th and May 11th. My mom surprised us all with matching t-shirts (that she is wearing in the pic) with the song Waymaker, the official coronavirus song.
I celebrated my birthday the next day with flowers from Juan, a pink cake, a coffee candle and Starbucks gift card, a virtual birthday party with my students (who will forever hold a special place in my heart), a drink delivery from a friend, a surprise call from Julian (Juan David's brother, who lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina), all while spending the day in my new special chair. Plus Mike and David spent time fixing up my bike for me so that it would ride much more smoothly and efficiently.
School finished ten days later, we "celebrated" David finishing high school, with fingers crossed that a graduation ceremony would ever happen. Then all focus went to preparing to celebrate my parents' 50th anniversary coronavirus style. With the country starting to open up and the threat of the virus still lingering, it's not easy trying to plan anything farther out than a few days. But we pulled it off and ended up getting to all go out to eat together at a Steakhouse restaurant, pretty much the first day that they started allowing a party of ten to gather together in a restaurant. My sister-in-law ordered a big letter sign for their front yard, captured some great pics of them in the yard, and I spent months collecting cards from various people from different churches they had been a part of. By the joy seen in my mom's eyes, I'd say our efforts meant a lot.
David's graduation was supposed to be first, over and done with by this point, until they changed it to June 8th, precisely when he was registered for DBU orientation with his new roommate. He tried to change to an earlier orientation date, but that date was already full. So they registered for June 11th-12th. Then they changed graduation again, to the next morning, June 9th, at 9:30 in Arlington at the old Ranger's stadium. Okay, so thankfully they had changed their orientation, because that, too, would have gotten in the way of it. And then, late Friday afternoon, we got a call that graduation had changed yet AGAIN. Due to extreme heat, the city of Arlington decided to switch graduations to the new stadium that had a dome, so they had to change everybody's date and time yet again. Sachse High School now would have their graduation on Thursday, June 11th, at 7:30 in the evening in the new Ranger Stadium. Once again, precisely for when they were registered to be at DBU for their orientation. At this point, I gave up. David didn't have any desire to go to his graduation, anyway, and I wasn't going to ask him to try to change things yet again. What was supposed to be a proud, joyous occasion had turned in to a joke. But imagining a graduation ceremony without David participating sent me into a whole whirlwind of emotion. I just cried.
Well, his new roommate, who is also a Sachse High School grad, ended up contacting their admissions counselor and found them two open spots for the June 8th-9th orientation, by mid-morning on Monday, the 8th. So David quickly packed and they drove there together just a few hours later, getting a taste of campus life, staying the night in their own separate dorm rooms. The next morning, instead of graduating, they registered for classes and rang the bell as new DBU Patriots.
Then finally, two days later, we made it to the Ranger's new stadium in Arlington for graduation. The day I truly thought would never come. The pictures I thought we'd never take do actually exist today. What a whirlwind of emotion and nerves to get to this day!
Each family sat in groups of five on separate ends of each row, with about six chairs in between each party.
Each graduate was seated with at least two or three chairs between them.
We have one last celebration out on our front porch this Sunday evening. Then we can finally wrap up high school and focus on his future as a Dallas Baptist Patriot and all that entails.
We are so excited that he found a local friend from high school to room with at DBU, taking a lot of the nervousness and unknown out of the equation. I cannot tell you just how excited I am for this next step in his life. It's definitely a huge stretch for us financially, but I am trusting God to provide in ways we can't see or fathom, just like He did while Juan attended.
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