Zibby Mag

By Nicci Kadilak

I knew I’d cry when her name was called, but that didn’t stop me from fighting the sting in my eyes.

My husband and our middle kid were sitting with the rest of the families, chairs arranged in pods on the blacktop where kids play four square at recess. I was at the farthest corner of the playground with the two-year-old.

The sound system was too weak for the outdoor space, but I followed along and roughly knew when to expect her. Her school did this cute thing where the student who just received their diploma calls the next student’s name. Fonseca came up, then Ford, Harlow, and Horton. The Horton kid was one of those class-clown types, which makes him maybe a little difficult to deal with but also means he likes to have his voice heard. So when he called my oldest child’s name, I heard it all the way in the back.

And my face sprung a leak.

She’d been looking forward to fifth grade graduation for months. I gave zero thought to holidays and special occasions, but it’s hard not to take note when everyone I know has been preparing for this day since September. My daughter—the kid who wears the same shorts and AC/DC hoodie every single day—even asked me for a dress.

This morning, I found her in a tangle of limbs on her bedroom floor, her sobs a jarring contrast to the bright floral motif wrapped around her. Insert excuse here: the dress was too stiff, there would be too many people at the ceremony, she was afraid to botch her speech. It was all of that, but it was none of that. Because if it was, I wouldn’t be crying, too.

I taught middle school for a long time, and a principal once said to me that high school and college graduations, the ones that can change your life and open up your future, are the only ones that mean anything. The others—kindergarten, fifth grade, eighth grade, and whatever other grades they have kids graduating from these days—are nonsense. They shouldn’t get a ceremony, but if they insist on having one, they most certainly should not call it a graduation. Use “Moving up,” “Promotion,” or whatever other clever name you can come up with. But never “Graduation.”

The things we thought to be true are collapsing all around us, and we are asking our ten- and eleven-year-olds to go to school and learn geography and go to P.E. class and eat the lunches we’re sending with them as if everything is totally fine.

I didn’t think much for myself back then, and I wasn’t going to argue with folks who had been in the field much longer than I had. But I’ll come out and say it: My kid just graduated. She moved from one part of life to another, from one school to another, from one group of friends to another, from one level of maturity to another.

And that in itself would be enough. But there’s more to this story, for this group of kids, and for my daughter in particular.

This graduation came at a time when so much of the world is on edge. Mass shootings average more than one a day in the U.S. A real question about whether or not democracy can pull through the many battles that have been waged against it. The rights of women and marginalized people in jeopardy. A virus that I vacillate between wanting to insulate us all from and wanting to just let in the door and get over with.

The things we thought to be true are collapsing all around us, and we are asking our ten- and eleven-year-olds to go to school and learn geography and go to P.E. class and eat the lunches we’re sending with them as if everything is totally fine.

It’s not fine.

Where I’m from, there’s always that one family member who says “We weren’t sure you were gonna make it” to the high school or college grad. Har har. Poke in the ribs. So clever, often because of the truth behind it.

There was never a question these kids were going to make it. That part was inevitable. But whether or not they’ll get through with their psyches intact? That one seems perpetually in question these days.

This past year’s fifth graders have been through more than fifth graders of any other generation, maybe ever.

This past year’s fifth graders have been through more than fifth graders of any other generation, maybe ever. They, like us, have been living in survival mode for years, but for them, it’s been nearly a quarter of their lives. My daughter has pulled through six years that were, a lot of the time, academically and socially really tough. During the last two and a half years, she also lost a grandparent, dealt with family illnesses, witnessed (not literally but pretty darn close) the birth of her baby brother, endured a year and a half of remote school, been stuck wearing a mask and/or staying home with all of us, and lived with low-level anxiety about getting sick and/or getting someone else sick.

She spoke at the beginning of this ceremony, my gorgeous, empathetic, exuberant firstborn. The kid who is terrified to embarrass herself in front of people was at ease today. She didn’t even need to practice. That’s the kind of bravery she has, but also the kind of comfort she feels around this group of teachers, kids, and parents.

Next year, all of that will change. She and her classmates will funnel into the town’s middle school, mingling with kids from other schools in town. Their comfort zones will be breached, and they’ll have to find new ways to relate to kids as they all grow into adolescence—separately and together.

They’ll take it with them, this tremendous store of bravery they’ve built up over the last three years, as they graduate from this stage to the next.

My only hope as my tears splash to the blacktop is that they’ll never need so much at one time, ever again.

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Nicci Kadilak is a writer, mom, educator, and community volunteer with a love for math and a disdain for inequity. She writes articles, stories, and books that dig deep into complex emotions about family, motherhood, and what it means to live in today’s society. Through it all, she does her best to keep her sense of humor. She is currently querying her contemporary speculative novel, When We Were Mothers.