David Friedli

By the Dashboard Lights

05/01/08

Warning: Parental Advisory

We’ve been hanging around together for the better part of thirteen years.

Lately, we’ve been meeting in more unusual places.

We’ve become accustomed to seeing each other early in the morning, late at night and in other communities.

As we fueled our favored modes of transportation, we’ve exchanged glances and chit-chatted across the fuel island at the local quick shop.

We’ve passed by in the grocery store and on the streets and highways, doing that quick chin-up nod or finger-off-the-steering wheel acknowledgement as we crossed each other’s paths.

We are the parents of the Class of 2008, and in the last couple of months, things have changed.

We used to see each other at sporting events, drama productions, potluck award dinners and music contests.

We’d sit beside each other in chairs in the middle of the gym as we waited for the next available staff member at parent teacher conferences, always being courteous saying, “Oh, go ahead, we can wait,” all the while knowing our child and their child had all the same teachers and we were destined to spend the next two hours competing for the opportunity to sit across the table to get a grade report and update on scholastic progress.

Now, our moments of meeting have moved to other venues.

The mall. The card and party store. The floral shop. The post office. The hardware store. The home improvement center.

We are in graduation mode. There are things to be done, and although our schedule is still full of award banquets and sporting events and drama productions, we also now aren’t surprised to discover a very familiar person in a new environment.

We have shopped for prom dresses and tuxedos and corsages.

Now we are into paint and floor covering and tableware and catering supplies.

We’re mailing dozens of invitations knowing all the while they will bring a return of friends, neighbors and relatives into our homes. We relish the thought of our child’s graduation being remembered and celebrated, even if it causes anxiety.

Thirteen years ago, we were anxious also. The nervousness of leaving a child in the kindergarten classroom grew into anticipation of graduation day.

We, like our children, became friends, bonded together by the experiences of school.

We should have seen it coming and prepared for the moment, but we have, like each of our children did at least once in those thirteen years, waited until the last minute to complete an inevitable task.

Graduation is just around the corner, and when you see us, arms filled with supplies and a look of panic on our faces, have pity on the parents of the Class of 2008.

Thankfully, our children have done their part on time.