MESSAGE #49 - GRADUATION DAY AT SUCCESS HOTLINE UNIVERSITY

DATE: May 21, 2007

PLACE: Success Hotline University

EVENT: The 17^th Annual Commencement Ceremony

Once again we have been blessed with perfect weather for our commencement ceremony here at Success Hotline University. I am pleased to introduce our commencement speaker.

Most commencement speakers are honored for having achieved something great. Lisa Sargese is different. She is achieving something great. After undergoing gastric bypass surgery last August, Lisa has lost more than 100 pounds. And she is not doing it alone! Through her blog, she is baring her soul to the whole world. Every day we can read of her successes and failures . . . every day we hear of her pleasures and pains. Someone once said that example is not only the best way to teach, it is the only way to teach.

I’m pleased to introduce a teacher, a professor, a pioneer . . . our commencement speaker - Lisa Sargese.

Thank you for welcoming me here to celebrate this milestone with all of you.
It's a pleasure to be with you today for graduation.

I'd like you to consider this question...
Was this your destiny?

What do we mean by that exactly?
Destiny.

Something that was destined to happen no matter what?
Fate somehow taking over where human will might stop?

Something that’s meant to be fighting it’s way to its rightful place in reality in spite of us?

Were you meant to be here today in your cap and gown ready to move your tassel to its destination signifying the completion of your degree?

I believe you were meant to be here.
I believe this was your destiny, but not because it would have happened no matter what.

It couldn’t have happened no matter what.
It could not have happened without you.
You made it happen.
Your work, your effort, your determination.

Your journey, your destiny.
Your destiny is yours because you reached it.
You went there.

Like many of us here today, I’m descended from a family of immigrants. My grandparents came to America hoping for a better life for themselves and for their families.
They worked hard to get here and once they arrived they continued to work.

Their lives were not glamorous.
They struggled to make ends meet. They never lived comfortably.
They didn’t master the English language easily.

But they believed it was their destiny to be here in America, to have American children who would attend American schools and reap the benefits of America’s many opportunities.

Like many of us here today, ours is the first generation to attend college and earn our college degrees. Having learned the value of hard work from THEIR parents, OUR parents toiled and saved in hopes of giving us, their children a better life, to give us the opportunities they didn’t have growing up as the children of immigrants.

The opportunity to attend and complete school.
To graduate.
To graduate from college.

My mother will never forget her graduation. She grew up as one of 11 children during the Great Depression. There wasn’t enough money to spend on a new dress for her to wear to the ceremony. There was barely enough money to feed all of them.
But they were resourceful, scrappy you might say.

She was tough.
No one at school dared make fun of her hand me down clothes or worn out shoes.
She would ball up her little fist and threaten to give them the what-for.
She was proud.

Her older sister, my Aunt Mae sewed some lace on a second hand dress for my mother to wear on the dais. She tied ribbons in my mother’s hair. She fashioned a makeshift corsage from the roses in my grandfather’s garden. My mother felt special. She’ll never forget that day she walked across the stage at Public School #9, the day she graduated from the 8^th grade.

That’s as far as she went. She wasn’t able to finish high school. The war was on and the women had to work in the factories. My mother dropped out of high school to work as a welder. She wore overalls and a welder’s mask. She helped support the family during World War II.

She married young, became a mother at age 21 and never thought about school again.
She couldn’t.
She had a child to raise and a household to run.
She chose her destiny out of what she believed to be very limited options.

My father played football in high school.
He graduated then immediately entered the Army.
It didn’t occur to him to go to college.

College was for those other kids, not a second generation Italian whose father spoke broken English. My father worked hard all his life. He provided for me, paid off the house, bought me my first car.

When I graduated high school he wasn’t sure if he should encourage me to go to college or to go to work.

I went to work.
I didn’t think college was my destiny.

When I came here as a freshman back in 1994 I was already 30 years old.
I had worked in the corporate sector for over 10 years.
I was miserable.

Something was missing.
I wasn’t quite sure what.
I wasn’t sure until my grandmother died.

My father’s mother, Mary Sargese.
Mary the Shoe they used to call her. She had a great sense of humor and was the neighborhood story teller.
She didn’t just tell a story, she acted out all the parts complete with different voices.
She was one of the few women in the neighborhood who could read.

The little Italian ladies would gather around her as she read to them from the newspaper.
One day she put a leaf between her nose and her upper lip and shook her fist as she imitated Adolf Hitler. One of the ladies was so frightened she ran from the porch screaming and spitting to ward off the evil eye.

My large, loving grandmother shook with laughter.

I was sad to see her go.
As I looked at her resting in her coffin, I prayed a silent prayer to her.
I told her how sad I was that she hadn’t seen me do anything much with my life.
I had no husband or children.
My career was sketchy and unsatisfying.
At 30, I didn’t believe I had accomplished much.
I vowed to change that.

I promised her that her son, my father WOULD see me do something great with my life.
I had always dreamed of becoming a philosopher.

I promised her I would do just that.

That Fall, I sat in a college classroom for the first time as a student.
And I earned my degree.

Was it my destiny?

Just because it DID happen, does that mean it HAD to happen that way?

I could have chosen a different path.
I could have chosen a corporate job.
I could have chosen a marriage and children.
I could have chosen to postpone my college education.

I could have, but I didn’t.
I made THIS choice.
Attended THIS school.

I rode that shuttle bus the first day here, crying. Crying because I didn’t know anyone. Crying because I was afraid as an older student I wouldn’t fit in.

Crying because I was afraid I wasn’t smart enough to be a college student let alone a college graduate.

I was afraid it wasn’t REALLY my destiny to graduate college.
I prayed again.
If it was meant to be, please help me.

Help me do this every day.
Help me ride this shuttle bus up to College Hall and walk to my classroom.
Help me read every night.
Help me learn to type so I can write my papers.
Help me make friends so I won’t feel so alone.

If this is my destiny...help me fulfill it.
Help me do the work.

It took a lot of pulling to get to this place.
Destiny didn’t pull me along, I pulled myself toward my destiny.

You did the same thing or you wouldn’t be sitting in those seats, proudly wearing your caps and gowns, proudly smiling the satisfied smiles of accomplishment.

This wasn’t your destiny till you MADE it your destiny.

Every day you fought for a parking spot, every day you climbed that hill to University Hall, every paper you lost sleep over, every exam you studied for pulled you closer and closer to this day, your destiny.

Were you destined to be here?

Your hard work says yes.
Your friends and families beaming from the bleachers say, yes.
That diploma in your hand says yes.

You’ve reached your destination.
It was YOUR destiny because YOU reached for it.

And now that you’ve arrived, you’re here forever.
The college graduate.
you were destined to be.

I’m honored to be among you at this graduation.
We did it.
We finally did it.
We’ve reached our destiny.

Congratulations.