11 Your Final Graduation - Finally Home Series (MP3)

Listen to a Sample

It was a splendid night for an outdoor graduation. Thirty-four members of the Lucado clan occupied a sizeable section of the amphitheater seats in honor of high-school graduating Sara, my youngest daughter. What we didn't know, however, is that two Lucado ladies were graduating the same evening.  About the same time Sara stepped across the platform, my mom stepped into paradise. Sara and Thelma, separated in age by seventy-three years, yet joined by the same graduation date. We learned of Mom's death the morning after Sara's celebration. The announcement, "Sara graduated! " was replaced with the somber one: "Mom died."

The two phrases evoke such different reactions.  Applause for the first.  Tears for the other.  We react to graduation with congratulations and to death with "I'm sorry."  And, of course we should.  Reactions to graduation and death shouldn't be the identical.  Yet, should they be so different?  Both celebrate completion and transition.  Both are irreversible; you can no more un-graduate than you can un-die. And both gift the graduate with recognition -- a diploma to one and brand new body to the other.