By Atty. Antonio P. Pekas
The graduation of my kid will be this coming Friday but we are celebrating today for the graduation of his first cousin whose circumstances are quite unique. When he was born (the second child) , his father the night before flew to a foreign land in a desperate and genuine effort to earn a better future for his budding family. Today that babe just graduated from the course architecture. The father has yet to meet him in person. Good thing there are now gadgets allowing for frequent video calls which are of course poor substitutes to the real thing.
Good thing that father was met with good luck economically, in that foreign land. He manages now an outfit of his employer for almost three decades already and is generally making good though he is still a TNT in that land. Thus he could not have just flew home from that land which he could have done easily were circumstances better in a conventional sense.
So the kid practically marched through the graduation stage on his own escorted by a lady cousin about his age. They were joyful in going through the process which would not have been if it happened during my generation when graduates were usually escorted by both parents—the apex of parental pride.
Well, as an aside, in my case long ago, I went through the graduation stage alone as my thinking then was it was a colonial imposition we should not succumb to.
In this case in point, however, neither parent was present as they were estranged from each other like most other OFW parents.
The moral of the story is, however this word will turn out we will still be okay celebrating graduations every now and then. Kids and parents will adapt to their circumstances and life will go on. So don’t you worry.
**
