Preface

I’ve been fighting with Megan because she told me her and Jake were going to Graduation together. My problem was that she hadn’t invited me, and that really hurt. She told me she figured that I didn’t want to go, because of conversations we had previously.

I ws upset by her assumptions and we had really been having problems. And I still didn’t know if I was going or not.

Finally deciding to go, I dawned my “Sunday Best” to go and support my friends at Graduation. I felt incredibly strange about it, but I thought it would be better for me to go.

But when I got there, everything changed.

Thomas Snover, a senior who was supposed to march this morning, died last night in a motorcycle accident.

The news was being slowly passed around to those on the floor by Rocky counselors. Brad told me about it. And even though I’ve never known Tom (or heard of him, either), I was sad. I wasn’t so much worried about how I was feeling anymore. My feelings turned to the real tragedy that had happened.

As the choirs got up on the risers, ready to sing, my friend Andra said something that struck me in a way I can’t really describe. She said, “It’s funny … I saw him yesterday and thought he was kinda cute …”

The Ceremony

Everything was basically the same as it is every year, with the exception of Dr. Radcliff’s announcement about Thomas, where he asked those in attendance for a moment of silence.

I sat through things trying as hard as I could to suppress so many emotions. When Rocky Mountain Echoes went on stage to sing “It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday,” I really lost it.

Rather than expose my problems to the thousands in attendance, I went out into the lobbies that surround Moby Arena. While I was out there, I saw Megan standing there as well. Then I went back in to the ceremony.

The next time I walked out of it (during the actual Commencement), Megan asked me to talk to her, and I told her that I wanted to go back in to the ceremony. I was posturing … but I didn’t know how to handle things.

Post

After the whole thing was done, I did my best to get out of there as fast as humanly possible. Megan was chasing me to my car, saying that I needed to talk to her, and that I was running away from her … The only thing that I said to her was that this was the time that I needed her most, and she wasn’t there for me. Then she stopped following me, and I went out to my car.

The rest of the day is a blur … I don’t know how much more of this I can take …