First of all, I would like to congratulate all of you upon reaching this important milestone in your lives. Graduations are not only an acknowledgement of one’s achievement, they are celebrations of one’s growth as an individual and they serve as a rite of passage to the future. It is my sincere hope that you can feel and express the joy of knowing how your hard work led you to this point in your lives.
Donning a cap and gown and walking down an aisle to receive your diploma might not necessarily be what you will look back on when in the future you reflect upon your elementary, high school or college experiences. I can speak to that from a personal example.
I completed my four years of high school many years ago, June of 1968 to be exact. For those of you who know your history that was and will always be remembered as a very tumultuous year in our nation’s history. In January of 1968, the beginning of my final semester in high school, President Lyndon Johnson announced that he would not seek re-election to the Presidency due to the growing disenchantment with the ongoing Vietnam War. Later during my last semester, Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis on April 4, which led to great civil unrest in the country. As a result, my senior trip to Washington DC was marred by protest and civil demonstrations that caused us to miss an opportunity to benefit from our trip. Later that semester, as we prepared for graduation, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, a Democratic candidate for president was assassinated in Los Angeles following his winning the California primary. As all these events were occurring, our nation was embroiled in a war in Southeast Asia that was serving to tear our nation apart, taking the lives of a number of my good friends and fellow classmates.
As we graduated that June, we not only contemplated going off to college; many of us were seriously concerned about how our world was tearing itself apart, and whether or not we would even have a future. Therefore, as I sit back today and reminisce about my high school years, I do not necessarily think about donning the red scarlet cap and gown of Holy Cross High School, I think about my friends and what we went through during that eventful year in our lives. I think about how we each had to learn and grow and adapt to a world that was changing; a world where we had to become the directors of our lives and our futures, and how as a result of the challenges we faced, we became stronger and better prepared to meet the world head on.
Your world as the Class of 2026 changed overnight. You went to bed one night, having an idea as to your future and where you were going, and then woke up and found that the whole world had changed, that there was a new game plan. Just as the events of 1968 changed my life and the lives of all the member of the Class of 1968, the Class of 2026 will forever be impacted by the changes to our world wrought by economic changes. COVID, AI, political polarization and armed turbulence. But, you will make adjustments, just as my classmates did, and the sooner that you realize that you are the directors of your future, the better and more able you will be in coping with other issues as you progress through your lives.
Hopefully, 10, 20, 30 or even 50 years from now, you will sit back and not so much reminisce donning a cap and gown whatever their colors; you will remember the events that shaped your life. While as devastating as current events may be, hopefully, you will look back on this year as a time when you became the director of your life and you learned to face the future without anxiety, but rather with the knowledge that you were equipped to meet any challenge that the future might hold.
Happy Graduation and Best Wishes to all of You!