Landslide mention-Pomp and circumspection

[Livia]

Pomp and circumspection

Publish Date: 05/18/06

My sin is Pride, people. This week in particular, my sin is button-busting, cloud-sitting, unbridled P-R-I-D-E. The source of this obnoxious, swaggering delight is my daughter, who will graduate tomorrow from The University of Maryland, Baltimore. She will receive her master's degree in social work, after three grueling years, with straight A's all the way.

The old family joke is that Missy Roo, as I like to call her -- my Alpha and Omega -- has been in school since she was potty trained. It's true, and it's hard to believe it has been 25 years since I enrolled her in the Hobby Horse Daycare Center in Rockville. That first day, in the fall of 1981, her lunchbox was as big as she was.

I'll never forget how she ran inside to play with the other kids, check out the "housekeeping" section, and begin her long and illustrious career of questioning authority. She was so full of joy and wonder.

I, on the other hand, blubbered and sobbed all the way to work. My baby, all grown up ... at age 2?

The same thing happened when she moved away to college. After we had dragged all her stuff in, and she condescended to let me put the sheets and pillows on her bed, she walked me out to the car to say good-bye. We had a little hug. I smiled really big, wanting to give her confidence about her great new adventure.

I wasn't out of the parking lot before I howled like a mad dog, and I cried all the way home, clutching the steering wheel, playing a tape of Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide" over and over. Good thing it wasn't a long drive from Towson back to Frederick, or I might have run out of Kleenex.

Likewise, when she got her undergraduate degree ... that was a two-hanky occasion, if ever there was one. So great, though -- I'm sure they heard me woo-hooing in Pittsburgh when her name was called in Towson.

So I expect there might be some sniffling this weekend, and some serious yee-hawing from the bleachers, when a Certain Someone receives her MSW. This achievement is the product of incredibly hard work, perseverance through difficult times, and ordinary, old-fashioned spunk. And my daughter worked really hard too! Just kidding! It was all her. I'm just the head cheerleader.

L'il Missy's choice of a helping profession is the result of a genuinely kind and compassionate nature, which God bestowed upon her, and for which I take no credit whatsoever. (My readers will attest that I am a sharp-tongued old bat with more than one axe to grind.) Things have turned out surprisingly well!

This weekend we will party down with family and friends. We'll retell funny stories about my daughter -- like how, at age 10, she invented the word "nephew-tism" (the questionable practice of hiring a relative). Or the time when she was 3, riding in the grocery cart, she saw a man wearing a cowboy hat and boots, and called to him repeatedly, "Hey Mister! Hey Mister! Where's your horse?"

Now who wouldn't be proud of that, I ask you? Who wouldn't shed a tear of joy?

http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sec...?storyid=49008