Sunday, May 22, 2011
Speaking of graduation, we found ourselves at another graduation ceremony this past weekend.
We drove out to western Kansas because my daughter from a previous marriage graduated high school in a small town called Bucklin. She also had her baby about a month ago and we hadn’t seen him yet, so this was to be our first visit as grandparents.
It was definitely a trip of good times and bad times.
Let’s start with the bad. During the graduation ceremony, they did this thing that was really cool. Well, for some people, that is.
There were a bunch of roses on the stage and the graduates could go and get roses and present them to parents, grandparents, etc. out in the audience. It was a powerful moment during the ceremony, but there was no rose for me.
I shook it off and went to talk to her and see the baby afterward. My daughter did let me hold Carter, but otherwise pretty much blew me off and it hurt.
My ex wife came over and started trying to talk to me and Ceecee stepped in and told her to back off and leave me alone. It was pretty cool that she was so assertive in a protective way for me, since she obviously knew I was upset.
The cool part was when we had left Bucklin and were on our way to Dodge City, where my in-laws are. I was thinking about the time I went to Dodge City during our separation and I brought back a Mexican cake and these special marinated steaks that we used to love to eat when we lived there. Kasey, my wife’s youngest daughter was with us and she mentioned wanting to go to the Mexican store and I looked at Ceecee and she said, “It could be a little restoration.”
It was so amazingly great to be on the same page like that, and it turned out to be really cool for Kasey to be able to share it with us. Last time, I had gone there by myself and things hadn’t gone well when I had come back. This time, we were there together on the restoration tour and things couldn’t be better.
The Restoration Tour 