‘Here’s to the Night’

“Here’s to the night we felt alive. Here’s to the tears you knew you’d cry. Here’s to goodbye. Tomorrow’s gonna come too soon.”

I apologize to anyone who’s around the same age as me because I’m sure putting the lyrics to Eve 6’s “Here’s to the Night” (above) has now planted the song in your head for the next several days.

This song came out my senior year of high school and was featured in several graduation ceremonies in 2002.

The funny thing is that even though Eve 6 seems to have faded into obscurity, I still hear the song occasionallyduring graduation ceremonies. It isn’t every year, but it will pop up every so often even as the graduating class become less and less likely to know the band.

I’ve often thought that selections like this and the two or three Garth Brooks songs that will pop up are too dated for modern graduations.

I reconsidered this recently as my girlfriend, Wyndi, and I each covered graduations at schools we don’t cover throughout the year.

I knew very few students or families at the ceremony, so I took photos with a smile, happy to see the joy on faces, but remaining largely unaffected.

As the ceremony went on, I got to the presentation of roses to family, friends and loved ones and a slideshow full of childhood and family photos.

As families dabbed the tears away from eyes and cheered at a well-timed joke, I realized just how similar the graduation was to my own nearly 20 years ago.

The collective experience of attending school and graduating on to the next phase binds many of us together.

I can remember having to console my mother through the tears of her ‘baby growing up.’ I can remember feeling so much more mature after I was presented with the diplomaeven though I absolutely wasn’t.

I can remember the uncertainty of what comes next.

If life is a video game, our school years are the training levels. We all learn the mechanics and get handy hints of what to do.

After those, we have to figure out how to use the information and lessons we have been provided in a way that will make for a fulfilling life.

I dare say we spend the rest of our lives mastering these goals, since the closest clue we have to the meaning of life is “42.” (Hi to all my fellow “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” fans!)

I reflected on all this as a group of smiling kids picked up a piece of paper that showed they were ready to enter adulthood. I was moved to see that just like me, and many of us, they had family, mentors and friends who were there for them, providing lessons that the graduate will return to far longer than they probably expect right now.