My Son Walked Across the Graduation Stage in a Bright Red Dress While the Auditorium Giggled — He Did It for Me. And I Begged_Him Not To

They did.

I did not know that. I want to be extremely clear: I did not know that a diploma with my daughter’s name on it had been sitting in a records room at that school for ten years.

They’d prepared it in May of 2016 with everybody else’s. When she died, the district’s policy was that it could be conferred posthumously if the family requested it at the ceremony, and if not, it would be held for the family to collect.

Somebody called me in June of 2016 about collecting it.

I remember the phone call and I remember absolutely nothing about what I said, and I never went.