Owen's graduation night, Oy

As everyone knows by now, Owen's high school graduation was something to behold. In layman's terms, it was a hot mess. And I'm not even kidding. Since that fateful night I've asked of some, "Was it as bad as I thought it was? Maybe I over exaggerated it."  The answers are always, "Yes it was that bad." Ugh. It was. 

Let me explain to the people who already know the story...

Since this was our first Neville graduation, we didn't know what to expect, so Carrie, John and I arrived at 5:30 for the 7:30 start time. We were literally three of the first five to arrive, and so we assessed the stands and picked our seats. Others in the fam arrived as well and before long we had secured the seating necessary to accommodate our large group in anticipation of hearing Owen's much anticipated valedictory speech. I remember saying as we were sitting there, "This is a perfect night for an outdoor graduation." Just look here at the sunshiny afternoon... Not a cloud to be seen. 

Look at this! It's perf! There's no foreboding at all!

Owen's overbite pic made many appearances before I finally saw it. The school chose this picture. There was a better one than this....jerks. 

We were having fun in the stands. 

The stands were full. 

We were a super upbeat group.

I was telling the picture taker to get those people...not me.

Colby and Carrie were busy playing Candy Crush. I don't know if that's true, but there are no rebuttals allowed. 

LOOK AT THAT SKY. Those are fluffy clouds. Not storm clouds. Someone's balloons got away from them. Balloons that weren't supposed to be inside the stadium. Just one of the many rules broken that night. 

But.....as the 7:30 hour approached, storm clouds that had been gathering in the western sky, became a real concern. But we remained hopeful and upbeat....and naive and stupid. Then it was time for the seniors to march in. There was no big stick of knowledge to be seen...anywhere.

There they are ready to take their seats. 

That's Owen on the left.

There he is again.

There are the clouds surrounding us.

The clouds caused people to get noisy and restless and the ripples of murmuring soon turned into a rumble of a huge discussion in the stadium. It. Was. Loud. I don't know if there was any lightening, but a panic of ridiculous portions took over the crowd. And by the time Owen was ready to begin speaking, the noise was so loud we couldn't hear a word the boy said. By then, rain sprinkles were beginning to fall and you would have thought Noah and the ark had just passed by on Forsythe because droves of people began exiting as loudly as anyone has ever loudly left anywhere. Is was Cray Z. Then somebody in the crowd yelled something and someone else told that person to shut up and in no time at all, things seemed to be escalating to scary proportions. 

Here he goes to make the speech no one heard.

Can't hear a thing.

Remember the pretty afternoon? Well it's gone. 

This is Owen receiving his diploma in the rain. 

This is Owen in the rain having just gotten his diploma. 

These are people willing to sit in the rain and see Owen get his diploma. All of ours stayed for it, they just weren't all in the picture. But notice the stands are freaking empty. 

This is pouring rain.

Notice the stands on the other side...empty.

Driving pouring rain.

This is Owen with his soaking wet proud parents. I earned how bad I looked. We had no idea where he was after the ceremony was over. We finally found him in the weight room and took a few pictures there. 

I don't even care how bad I looked, I earned it.

The Dad and the grad.

Here's the thing. If the rain had come and people didn't act like rude, selfish, obnoxious idiots, we'd have a funny story to remember the graduation ceremony by. And that's the truth. Because if our family is anything....it's freaking adaptable. We all stayed, we all got wet, and saw the whole thing, because there was no way in the world I was gonna miss Owen's valedictory speech....even though I didn't hear any of it. I remember sitting there that night thinking in my head, I can't believe this is happening. I still can't. For days afterward I'd just blurt out randomly, "I can't believe that happened!" And it made me so mad and sad that I wrote a letter to the editor of the local paper and it got published. It was the first thing that made me mad and sad enough to do that. Because as I said in the letter, Owen and the two other valedictorians worked for four years for that honor and the people in the stands ruined that special moment for them. They ruined the event for the entire Neville senior class of 2014. It truly broke my heart and I still can't look back at it with any fond memories. I don't think I'll ever be able to. Of course the honor can never be taken away, but that moment is ruined forever. You only get one high school graduation. I'll never forget Owen's. 

Afterwards we met at Grandma's to take the pictures that I had wanted to take at the school But guess what? The group picture taking at the school was ruined as well. And guess what else? They were going to get to toss their hats after it was over? Do you know how long I've wanted my very own graduation hat tossing picture? Ugh. So. Long. It grieves my soul. I suspect I'll never get another chance since ULM doesn't allow hat tossing. So stupid. 

OK, that's it. I'm done. I'm gonna stop here and quit griping about the grad. Because I've relived it, I'm all worked up about it again. 

I'm gonna make a separate post for the pics at Gmaw's, hopefully before I leave town on Wednesday. 

Heading west for the holiday weekend.

That's a good thing.

Peace out.

Also thanks to the posters of comments to my blog. It really means a lot for you to take the time to leave me a note. Really, really. 

OK, now I'm done.

But I still can't believe that happened!!