As my oldest daughter was nearing graduation, I started pondering what exactly we celebrate at graduation ceremonies and parties. It is not the mere fact of getting the diploma (although I realize that for many that is a great accomplishment). For our family, it's probably celebrating all the work and success of a child who signs up for every opportunity and is never satisfied with the status quo. But it is also celebrating how she always picked herself up after a disappointment, or how she would re-focus and channel her energy into the new direction when she didn't get what she was after. Or that she succeeded at something hard and seemingly unattainable. How she got hired to be a volunteer for a month at a camp for people with disabilities on the East Coast, and went by herself two summers in a row. How she invented a device that allows for people with Cerebral Palsy to take ballet classes and taught herself the engineering software to do so, not having taken any engineering classes. It's hard for me to realize that she is finished with all the things she did in high school, but I understand that the trajectory she's been on will only continue, just in a different place, under different circumstances, but probably with more freedom to go far and high and to discover herself, and with more wisdom and experience to weather the storms. In these photographs from Katya's senior photo shoot last summer on Martha's Vineyard, I hope you gleam how serious, strong, and yet silly this girl is.
