The Year of Living Hopefully

June 14, 2018, was perhaps the greatest day of my life. I say that often when a surprise achievement by Maddie unveils itself. At the time, I absolutely mean it. There were those few days when, anticipating yet another fight-full school morning, I was met instead with a fully-dressed, smiling teenager ready to go. Or those times when I opened Maddie’s door prepared to fight over a much-needed shower only to find her with wet, semi-clean hair. In those moments, the sense of relief is so palpable it’s hard to imagine a better feeling, so I will announce, “This is the best day of my life!” with full conviction.

On June 14th of this year, two things happened. First of all, my first baby, the person who made me a mom, turned 18. Suddenly she says thing like, “I should probably know more about that stuff because I can vote now.” Um, what’s that now? Civic awareness from the kid whose universe is primarily in an online world?

Second, we finished high school. And yes, I do mean “we.” Just as I predicted, I completed some of her work myself. I didn’t do that much, really, and in fact her grades were high enough in the end that she could have probably skipped those assignments altogether and it wouldn’t have mattered. But I just don’t function that way. I have hard time doing less than is requested, much less required. Plus I wanted her be in the best possible position for finals, so that even a terrible exam score wouldn’t sink her.

So I wrote a letter about improving workplace conditions during the second industrial revolution. She had no idea where to begin, so I would say, “Well, what about a law requiring overtime pay?” “That sounds good,” she would say. And then I would write it up. “How about compensation for on-the-job injuries?” “Sure.” And so I wrote an informed, intelligent (but still somewhat simple) piece and turned it in. Her tutor worked with her on math and English, and I, as usual, took on history and science. We worked through the study guides together, which helped us prepare for what was to come. I also resigned to Google an answer here and there, which I would never condone or recommend under normal circumstances. In fact, because I wouldn’t let her go that route winter semester, we both nearly lost our minds. But these, I think we can all agree, were not normal circumstances. And so we used the resources that were available to us, I like to say.

I pulled up the online exam for world history and, unwilling to face the torturous three-hour slog that almost killed me last semester, we wizzed through what we knew together and guessed on or Googled the rest. Then we pulled up the biology exam. She thought she could manage it herself, which was great because somehow my 50-year-old brain felt unable to conceive of how mitochondria do this and dRNA and mRNA do that. Too tiny of a world for what I normally must process everyday, I guess.

I was looking up something on my computer when Maddie said something. “Uh-huh,” I said absent-mindedly, trying to entertain myself while she worked on her final. She said it again. “What?” I finally asked.

“I’m finished.” I’m pretty sure she answered twenty-five questions in five minutes.

“You’re DONE?!” I probably sounded less astonished than you’d expect because I’m quite sure I hadn’t fully embraced the magnitude of those particular words.

She was done. She was DONE. Done with her last final. Done with high school. Done. Done. Done. She became a legal adult and a high school graduate in the same day. We did it! Maddie and I and all of those teachers and specialists had pulled it together after thirteen years and hundreds and hundreds of nearly impossible days. And you know what? I don’t like to boast too much, but I have to take a lot of credit for this. All of the trials and successes and failures, all of the thinking and rethinking and thinking some more, all of the tears and frustration and despair, all of the days I just felt completely drained of energy and ideas but still remained hopeful enough to give it even MORE—it all paid off. Whether or not this diploma ends up meaning much to Maddie, it means an awful lot to me.

She had opted out of a graduation ceremony. She doesn’t really care about ceremonies or celebrations to begin with, and because she graduated from online school, the whole event would have been impersonal, and we wouldn’t have even known a single other person there. We had also planned a birthday dinner out that evening, but she decided later that day she’d rather stay home and play with her online friends. And so that monumental day came and went without any fanfare. She wasn’t sure when she’d fully comprehend what had happened for some time. But I most certainly did. After all, it was the greatest day of my life.