It’s that exciting time of year, full of high school and college graduations, even preschool gatherings with young children all dressed up accepting diplomas in their little hands. ⁠

It’s a time of budding flowers and budding lives, hitting milestones and acknowledging the completion of a year, which this year has been both daunting and challenging. ⁠

I smile seeing the cap and gowns, reading lines from graduation speeches, looking at long haired beauties in their prom dresses. The celebration and congratulations are merited and significant. These are proud moments.⁠

But I also consider those who may not be there. Those children who have struggled and continue to do so, who are not a part of the end-of-the year merriment, who did not complete (and may not have started), who did not attend a prom and did not pose in their tux or gown.⁠

This time of year, their absence is always glaring. And hard.⁠

For all of the parents of a kid who didn’t finish, who was unable to join in with the traditional salutations, who is dealing with any number of ailments - mental, physical, or spiritual - that make life more challenging, different maybe, that has arrested or postponed typical development:⁠

We see you.⁠

Victories can look very different. Sometimes the victory is in the grasping of hope, at the smallest step forward, or just the perseverance to keep going.⁠
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So while we congratulate all of our children this time of year, for the ones on their own path - a different path - we praise you too, with all of the pomp and circumstance. ⁠