Happy Graduation Austin!

Well, today is a day that I can hardly believe is here.  After fourteen years--that's right, fourteen--starting with Kindergarten, adding in a year of Pre-First, then going from First grade on up to Twelfth grade we are graduating our son from our homeschool.  This was not a sprint.  This was a marathon!

 This afternoon Austin will walk down the isle and receive his diploma at our church, where a wonderful graduation ceremony has been planned.

Let's back up just a minute.  There is something here that should not be overlooked.  Austin will WALK down the isle.  WALK.  Something that most of us take for granted every single day.  We don't even think about it.  But there are many children and adults that can not walk.

Austin could not walk for years.  He took his first step at a hospital between his physical therapist and myself--after hours of physical therapy.  Even then it was just one faltering step--and with a cane to assist.    But it was a beginning.  Hours more of physical therapy and he could finally walk more than one step.  When he was eight, God moved us just down the road from a therapy riding stable--the exact thing that his previous doctors had said that he needed--so the horseback riding could teach his brain what a "normal walking gait" felt like.  Still more years down the road, and two very talented doctors preformed two separate foot surgeries to help keep him walking--one of those surgeries was a total foot reconstruction which involved removing bone from one place and inserting bone in a completely different place.

Somewhere mixed in all of that there were also countless hours of occupational therapy as well as speech therapy.  And fur.  LOTS and lots of fur, from his absolutely beautiful service dog Lauren.  The dog who taught Austin how to slide down a slide.  No, I'm not making that up.  The dog who gave you motivation to go outside to play when you did not want to because you always fell down.  The dog who went with you to all those therapy sessions, and somehow made them more fun.  Yes, even though she died several years ago, I will never forget Lauren, because now she lives on in my heart.

And so here we are.  The boy whom the doctors did not know what he would be able to do.  They did not know if you would be able to read--now one could hardly KEEP you from reading.  They did not know how you would do academically, due to the massive stroke your brain suffered.  Yet you scored much higher on your ACT test than most teens in our state.  That is, teens who have no stroke to overcome, who have not had to spend countless hours in therapies.

Austin, many people have invested much time and energy into helping you succeed.  I hope you will always remember how much you are loved.

But as you graduate today and enter this next phase of your life, I want you to know that it is not your learning how to walk or your high academic performance that pleases me the most.  I am the most proud of you because you are kind and thoughtful, and because you love Jesus.  Hang on to those things--for they are what really matter.

I love you, Austin.

Happy Graduation!

Mom