This is the last day of high school. This is it. Graduation day. Your mother feels the pride that you made it. She never finished high school, and for her, this day is also her success. For you, it is just a petty ceremony. You get ready to go, not because of the ceremony, but because you will meet your friends and all of you will be wearing makeup and you will have your hair done. Your teachers are against wearing too much makeup on school days, but this day is for you. You will do as you want it. You put on makeup and had your hair done. You wore your school uniform and your mother helped you carry your graduation robe and cap. You see the smile on her face just by holding your robe.

You arrive at the school and part ways with her. She goes to the waiting area for parents, and you go to your classroom. The teachers use the homerooms as your holding area. This is also where you have a lot of memories with your classmates. You hear the graduation hymn start to play loudly from the school quadrangle. You believed this is just a petty ceremony. But here you are now, feeling it. You become nostalgic. It is real. It is here.

You begin to wonder about your future. What is next after this? Where do you go? Will you be able to get a university degree? Will you even make it to a university? You have never made any application. Will you find a decent job? You think that you were not a very bright student. And you admit that you did not always do your best. Your grades are just enough to make it to this ceremony. You begin to have this deep feeling of loneliness, knowing that your friends will no longer be with you in the next step. One of your best friends is going to the capital where she will live with her father while she attends the university. One will stay in this same town, but you know she has secured her spot at the local university through a scholarship. Your other friend got pregnant. She was able to finish high school too, but she would not attend this ceremony because she is due to give birth anytime now.

Your classmates are talking about the party tonight when your teacher came and ushered everyone to a line. You have practiced this a few times the week before. The school, the biggest public school in the city, has about eight hundred graduating students. It is noisier than ever. But now, you begin to hear this noise as a sound of success.

Your emotions flow. You are aware of the financial and emotional hardships your mother went through as she strived to send you to school. You had a lot of circumstances in school too, which you chose not to tell your mother because you knew she was already burdened. 

Your mother is right, you say to yourself. This is a moment of success!

The ceremony officially begins. One teacher stays on stage and calls out every class section and their respective class advisers. When your class was called, your teacher-adviser led your group to walk towards the quadrangle. You see your mother in line along with other parents at the opposite hall. You as a graduate will join your mother at the center where the hallways meet. You walk together as you enter the quadrangle, with photographers on the watch to capture this moment of each student. You will walk together for a moment for a photo, but she will be led eventually to the parents’ seats and you towards the graduates’ seats. But just before you part on this isle, tears of gratitude begin to fall from your eyes.

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