Closing a Chapter Without Pomp and Circumstance
Yesterday, my youngest little lady graduated from high school.
Alongside the graduation photos taken by her sister, she shared a few simple words about her school and homeschooling journey (5th-12th grade) that brought me to tears and inspired this reflection as a big chapter in my motherhood journey comes to a close.
She wrote:
“Graduated top of the class. Thank you, homeschool, for the best years of my life. Thank you, Mom, for your endless love, sacrifice, and dedication through every lesson and every year. On to the next chapter.”
There was no pomp and circumstance, at least not in the way people usually imagine it.
No cap and gown. except for the ones we used for photos for the memory and party invitation.
Just a family gathering and a quiet celebration of a job well done.
There was no pomp and circumstance. No formal ceremony. No stage. No cap and gown—save for the one worn for photos to capture the moment.
We were okay with it. My last high school graduate is excited for her next chapter.
We had a little family gathering. We are prepping for a larger gathering to celebrate the achievement in the days to come.
I am not sure how I feel about all of it.
My baby has finished all the formal education required. The objectives were met, the coursework completed, and the learning reached far beyond what any standard could measure.
The door has closed on my homeschooling days (unless, of course, I teach my grandchildren, as my kids threaten/promise/joke about). We’ll see God’s plan for that.
If I am honest, it ALL went by in a flash. And somehow, it moved more slowly than molasses, especially these last several years.
But her words about her homeschool days being the best years of her life?
Those years were also among the hardest of our lives.
They were filled with grief and loss.
Yet somehow, alongside all that sorrow, there was also room for growth, laughter, friendship, healing, learning, and the gift of learning at home at a pace just right for her.
Perhaps home and school became a soft place to land when the world felt hard.
As mothers, we can doubt, regret, question, and ponder a lot.
But…
Sometimes motherhood hands you a moment that hushes all the questions, regrets, curiosities, thoughts…
Sometimes motherhood hands you a moment that hushes all the questions, regrets, curiosities, thoughts…
Yesterday was one of those moments.
There are moments in motherhood when you wonder if you have done enough.
Have I taught enough?
Have I prepared them well enough?
Did I miss something important?
Did I pray and discern well about this?
Was I present enough? These are things that have tormented me quite a bit in light of my focus being on their dying father and, at times, my ailing and dying parents. But I know, without a doubt, that there were many other lessons beyond the books we learned in those moments. No one can ever take those lessons and those treasures from us.
Those questions above seem to follow mothers no matter what educational path they choose, but homeschooling has a unique way of putting them directly in our face every day.
There is no one else to blame, no one else to credit, and no place to hide.
The successes and struggles often feel deeply personal. And I know I fell short at times. How many homeschool moms feel they have done their best but wonder if it was enough?
How many moms wonder if what they chose for their children was the right decision? Even when my children chose homeschooling each time, given the alternative.
But I know my kids, who were homeschooled, rose to the occasion and learned to step up to the plate.
Our family has experienced nearly every educational environment imaginable. Public school. Private school. Parochial school. Homeschool. Co-op, Online. Large schools. Small schools. Traditional classrooms and unconventional paths.
I have something I could say about all of it—the gifts and the frustrations, the guts and glory of it
Maybe I should write a book about it someday: Letters from a Teacher Who Is a Mom to the Teachers (including herself) of Her Children.
It would be a collection of letters about the importance of teaching from the heart and to the heart of every child.
To see them.
To know them.
To love them.
To recognize their strengths.
To understand their struggles.
To extend grace for the places where learning is difficult, where life is hard, and where burdens are carried that may never be seen inside a classroom.
To meet them where they are.
Because that is how growth happens.
That is how confidence is built.
That is how understanding takes root.
And perhaps most importantly, that is how we help a child see the best in themselves.
Every teacher, every classroom, every challenge, every success helped form my children academically, emotionally, spiritually, and personally.
But we also know the first teacher of a child is a parent.
I first heard those words at a kindergarten open house when my oldest child was preparing to begin school. I took them seriously. And suddenly it all made sense.
I was struggling back then with where to send my kids, because I knew the system, having gone through it, earning a degree, volunteering, subbing, and teaching in various environments—public and private, affluent and under-resourced, large schools and small ones.
But when it came to our own children, we felt the same pressures many parents feel. We wanted to make good decisions. We wanted to choose wisely. We wanted to give them every opportunity to flourish.
And yet, there was always a quiet voice in the back of my mind asking, “Should I homeschool?”
At the time, I pushed that thought aside more than once. The world was not always kind to homeschoolers or to those who chose a different path. Ask me how I know. Ask the graduate who inspired this post how she knows.
Looking back now, I can see that I lacked some of the confidence I would gain later through experience, motherhood, advocacy, and life itself.
But the Lord makes straight our paths.
That winding road eventually brought me back to the very place I had once questioned.
Years later, I could see how God had been preparing me all along. Through teaching. Through learning. Through advocating for my children. Through the gifts He had already planted within me.
While discerning our next steps, I once sought advice from a seasoned homeschool mom, who wisely observed, “Sounds to me like you were meant to homeschool your kids and have been without knowing it.”
Looking back, I think she may have been right. I was always called to be a teacher; never did I think I would be called to teach my own kids while I was caring for their dad as he lived with and died from brain cancer. And in the years before that, when I was supporting my mom after losing my dad.
Long before I was deciding where to send my own children to school, I was watching my mother build a classroom and teach young children. She was a Montessori teacher and school director who loved learning and loved teaching. She was always teaching me. I imagined being a teacher, too.
Later, I watched her return to college and earn her nursing degree while raising our family. She taught me that learning never really ends. And becoming a nurse afforded me a unique opportunity (and sacrifice) to attend a private Catholic high school that would change the direction of my education, faith, and life.
Looking back now, I realize I was being formed too. Answering a call.
Heather Lebano
Looking back now, I realize I was being formed too. Answering a call.
In kindergarten, I remember telling my teacher I wanted to become a nurse or a teacher. I loved playing school with my dolls and stuffed animals. My beloved kindergarten teacher died over Christmas break, introducing me to grief far earlier than I understood at the time. And side note: I did eventually become a “nurse”/caregiver to many people, especially my late husband in his final years.
But my own education became a long, winding road that led me to acquire my BS in Education, graduating at the top of my class with awards and honors as a non-traditional student. Then, working toward my master’s in special education immediately following. Working and paying for all of that education on my own.
Education was that important to me. While I didn’t homeschool my son, he was home a lot during COVID days, working virtually and taking online summer classes, which required their own level of commitment. It’s no wonder my son decided to focus on education too.
Long before I formally homeschooled, our home was already a place of learning.
Reading and learning at home as a homeschool mom became a natural course of life.
Perhaps because teaching was already woven into my heart.
Books were always within reach.
Our home was print-rich, like a classroom ought to be.
Science experiments were always being conducted.
Art supplies filled the corners of the house.
Questions were welcomed.
Long, lingering conversations to delve deeper ensued.
Stories were read aloud.
Learning happened naturally because learning was part of life.
Little by little, homeschooling became part of our story.
One season led to another. One decision opened the door to the next.
What began as a way to meet the needs of one child gradually became an unexpected gift for our entire family.
We kept taking the next step in front of us and trusting God with the rest.
Looking back now, I can see His providence woven throughout it all.
As our daughter’s hearing loss progressed, we found ourselves navigating appointments, therapies, advocacy, and educational decisions we had never anticipated. Looking back now, I can see how those experiences helped shape the path that eventually led us home.
Like so many things in life, homeschooling grew from circumstances we never anticipated.
What I thought homeschooling would look like—a cute classroom in my basement and office—became something much more important.
School on the road.
Learning through life.
Healing of hearts with time to grieve.
Education happened in library books and long conversations.
Around kitchen tables and on road trips. On trips back and forth to the therapy. In art, pottery, and dance classes. In our vegetable and flower garden.
During cochlear implant appointments and long walks.
In waiting rooms, hospital rooms, and rehabilitation centers.
Through suffering, perseverance, forgiveness, faith, and grace.
Over the years, there were lesson plans and science experiments, co-ops and online classes, stacks of curriculum and late-night grading, editing one more draft.
There were also hearing tests and cochlear implant appointments.
Hospital rooms and hospice.
The deaths of grandparents.
A brain cancer diagnosis.
A stroke.
The death of my children’s father.
The loss of beloved pets.
Grief.
Grief upon grief.
Relationships that were fractured.
Widowhood.
Seasons when simply showing up felt like an accomplishment.
Somehow—through grace and prayer—learning continued.
It wasn’t done perfectly, but it was done faithfully.
Looking back, I have learned that education was never only about academics.
It was about forming people, my people. My children.
It was about cultivating curiosity, resilience, character, faith, compassion, perseverance, and the ability to keep learning long after the books were closed.
Looking back, I think that may be one of the most important lessons of all.
As of yesterday, the books and the door are closed on this chapter.
She completed her formal education.
The homeschool years have come to an end.
The lessons have not.
The gratitude has not.
The love poured into these years has not, either, and never will.
And while I can easily point to the things I wish I had done differently, and the adventures and experiences I wish life had allowed us to complete along the way, today I am choosing gratitude.
Gratitude for the unexpected path.
Gratitude for the lessons we learned together.
Gratitude that God’s plans so often turn out better than the ones we carefully design for ourselves.
And gratitude for the gift of seeing, if only for a moment, that perhaps all those years of wondering and all those questions were answered in a few simple words from my daughter.
While the world often associates graduation with pomp and circumstance, I have learned that education happens in places with less noise and hoopla, too.
Around kitchen tables.
In libraries and library books.
On long drives. At the edge of the sea.
In waiting rooms and hospital rooms.
Through suffering and perseverance.
Through showing up again and again for others—and ourselves.
Sometimes the most meaningful chapters close without pomp and circumstance.
Yet, they are still worthy of celebration.
So today, while I am celebrating my youngest daughter’s graduation, I am also celebrating the years I spent mothering, educating, advocating for, and learning alongside my children.
I am celebrating the decision to say yes when God opened a different door.
A door that led to some of the hardest years of our lives, but also some of the most meaningful.
Because those years mattered.
And they always will.
“Let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due season we shall reap our harvest, if we do not give up”—Gal. 6:9
“Sometimes the most meaningful chapters close without pomp and circumstance. Yet they are still worthy of celebration.
Heather Lebano
A Note to My Youngest Graduate
Your thoughtful note about my commitment inspired this blog post.
You have inspired many moments over the years, beginning with the day you first asked me to come home so you could go to school at home.
Your desire to walk a different path helped shape our family’s story.
I know it was not always easy.
I know the journey of being the littlest bird in the nest came with challenges of its own.
I know many of those years were surrounded by traumatic moments and harsh realities that neither of us would have chosen.
Yet you rose to the occasion.
You put your heart, your determination, your studious mind, your dancing feet, your clever attitude, and your gifted writing hand into your work.
You showed perseverance when life was hard.
You embraced learning.
You showed up.
You finished what you started.
And through it all, dance gave you a place to express yourself, create, grow, and stay grounded along the way.
I am proud beyond words of your commitment to your education, your dedication to your work, and the young woman you have become.
Thank you for allowing me the privilege of learning alongside you. Thank you for allowing me to teach and guide you.
I cannot wait for the next chapters you will write, and the Lord is writing in you. The best is yet to come.
Love,
Your Teacher and your Mom.
***
And worth sharing here are words I wrote in a post May 23, 2020, before life was forever altered so much, before I knew how much homeschooling would mean to our family.
Still, I can only hope we will look in the rearview mirror to be reminded of all the memories we made, (the good, the bad, the ugly and the downright fun).
When we look back, we will see the gifts, strength, patience, and resilience we found, and we will remember above all else, there was always love.
