This packrat, taking a sudden notion to pitch and toss, stumbled onto a bit of serendipity. In this season when Sam Butler graduated from Montgomery Blair High School in Maryland, I ran across a poem written by his father the year he graduated from Leesville High School in Louisiana. I found it just in time to share it with Sam and get Mark’s reluctant permission to use it for my blog.The End of a Beginning
A time of reflection on a lifetime;
A time of anticipation of a new life.
Dreams of what could have been
Mixed with dreams of what could be.
A ceremony to symbolize
The fact that you have become your own man.
Twelve years of hard work, scholastic and social,
Only to start over.
The end of relationships that were going to last forever;
The beginning of those that will.
Leaving what you’ve always known;
To begin what you never knew.
A time of reflection on a lifetime;
A time to forget the worries ahead.
Mark Butler
March 2, 1988
A time of anticipation of a new life.
Dreams of what could have been
Mixed with dreams of what could be.
A ceremony to symbolize
The fact that you have become your own man.
Twelve years of hard work, scholastic and social,
Only to start over.
The end of relationships that were going to last forever;
The beginning of those that will.
Leaving what you’ve always known;
To begin what you never knew.
A time of reflection on a lifetime;
A time to forget the worries ahead.
Mark Butler
March 2, 1988
Ironically, even as Sam attends orientation at Tulane University anticipating his own new life, Mark anticipates beginnings of his own as he changes his job to “work from home” status and moves with his family from Maryland to Hattiesburg. Perhaps graduation marks the first major life’s ending foreshadowing more beginnings to come. My hope is that they be will filled with few of the worries and many of the dreams come true.