<p>What a wonderful experience for you and your daughter! </p>
<p>My s's school has a Pops concert at the last of the year all of the choirs sing and some of the seniors get to choose a song to sing solo.
My s sang "Stars" from Les Mis. When he first walked on the stage he ask the choir director to stay and told why he had chosen this song. It was because it was from the first musical he was in as a freshman and she was the musical director. The experience was so powerful and with her direction it started him out on this whole track to persue MT.
And boy, did he sing, he's always a fabulous singer, but his voice was so powerful it filled the whole auditorium. He brought the crowd to their feet,which never happens at a choir show. He and his teacher exchanged emotional hugs, then it was over, what a great way to end his high school career. I'm still thinking about it two weeks later.</p>
<p>Thinking about all of you and all of your "endings"</p>
<p>Well our final farewell to High School was last night. Graduation followed by the all night Senior Party. It was a beautiful sunny evening on 6/6/06 and our d was asked to open the ceremony by singing the National Anthem. I knew it would be an emotional couple minutes for me - but sadly it brought out some feelings that I didn't anticipate.<br>
Earlier in the day 2 of her classmates were seriously injured while riding on a motorcycle just blocks from their school. Neither of them were wearing helmets. One had to be airlifted out of the crashsite. This deeply affected the graduating class of over 600 students not only at the ceremony but also at the party that followed.<br>
When it would have been their turn to receive diplomas and their names were read - the class joined in one single clap to acknowledge their absence. That alone brought tears to my eyes.
I'm pretty sure most of the parents there had a deep sense of sadness for the families of these students and at the same time a very real sense of relief that it had not been their son or daughter involved in the accident. I was certainly one of them. Yes, our d did a beautiful job, I'm thankful for her talent - but even more thankful that she was safe. It certainly brought to mind some of the stories shared by members here on this site - soozievt in particular.<br>
So our farewell to high school was emotional in a number of ways I would have not expected but made me thankful once again for every moment we have to share as a family.
Now I just have to try convince her that going rock climbing on Monday is maybe not such a great idea.</p>
<p>I had the endings a year ago. It was very hard and even harder with a quiet house in the fall and winter. But my son is back for the summer. He has directed a musical at my elementary school (OCU gets finished early in May) and will run an MT camp at church in July. He sang with a group of kids in an opera scenes program Saturday night, and the improvement that I saw in his voice and acting ability were amazing. I'll have more endings as August comes, but I am really appreciating what his being away has meant for him.</p>