Thursday, March 13, 2008 High school graduation By Henry L. Yu, M.D.
“THERE’S a time for joy, a time for tears, a time we’ll treasure through the years, we’ll remember always Graduation Day. At the Senior Prom, we danced till through, and then you gave your heart to me, we’ll remember always Graduation Day...”
Yes, that’s the song we sang on our high school graduation 39 years ago on the night of April 5, 1969.
The other day, I was browsing over old school yearbooks, souvenir programs, and some “faded photographs covered now with lines and creases.” You bet, the memories of yesteryears’ miseries, glories, triumphs, and victories reverberated like a song’s sweet refrain.
Indeed, there’s so much about our past to go back to. Wonderful flashbacks. Beautiful rewinds. A return to where we once were. Then suddenly, I realized, oh, just how fast time indeed flies! It’s been 39 long years since we graduated from high school. Yes, long gone by, but definitely not forgotten. How could I? How could you? How could we?
Thirty-nine years ago on Graduation Day, we were there at the crossroads in quandary, not knowing what or where life was leading us, uncertain of what to take up in college.
All we knew then was we had to be in college, get a degree, graduate and work, earn and save, build a family, and go up the ladder.
That’s life’s agenda handed to us from generation to generation. In our young minds was imprinted the belief that a man is more useful to his community if he is educated rather than if he is illiterate.
While it is true that with education, we have to spend money, effort and time, we were made to believe that we can't lose what we have learned. Knowledge is power. Education is the only thing that our parents can ever leave to us, something that can never be taken away from us. It is a legacy. As Dr. Jose Rizal once said: “Education is very important for the progress of a nation.” With that in mind, we went through the agony and ecstasy of student life. We were young then. We were on top of the world. There was so much time to fall and stand up again, to commit mistakes and reform. The world was in our hands.
After 39 years, what has become of the 17-year-old high school graduate back then?
Have we achieved our goals? Have we made those impossible dreams possible? Have we fought the unbeatable foe or bore the unbearable sorrow? Have we finally found that pot of gold at the end of a rainbow?
