Observations©

By Donald S. Conkey

Date: May 29, 2008 - # 8823 - Title: Graduations are Special Family Days (812)

Each spring those of us who have children and grandchildren often receive a special envelope in the mail - perhaps several of them. They will be invitations from someone close to us, most likely a family member. These envelopes come because this is the season when loved ones graduate and get married. These events are special events to our loved ones, as well they should be. They are also special times in the lives of us parents and grandparents as we watch a loved one walk, dressed in their special robes, across the stage or kneel at the alter of marriage.

            Obtaining a solid and practical education has been a family tradition for as long as I can remember, a tradition that continues to continue. So far this year Joan and I have received five graduation invitations from family members: two for high school and three for college graduations.

Granddaughter Hannah Shaw and grandson Bryan Jones graduated from high school last week and granddaughter Christine Conkey Lake, granddaughter-in-law Emily Black Conkey, and grandson Robert Levi Shaw each graduated from the university: Christine from the University of Central Florida and Emily and Robert from Brigham Young University Hannah and Emily were each valedictorians of their respective schools.

Naturally we are as proud of their individual and collective accomplishments as are all parents and grandparents. Hannah, though severally limited physically, wants to become a doctor and turned down a scholarship to Emory to attend BYU mainly because of BYU’s emphasis on the spiritual aspects of life plus its strong pre-med program. BYU with its motto of “Enter to learn, go forth to serve” has become a family tradition. Hannah has four older siblings and six cousins who have or will soon graduate from BYU.

Much of our family’s emphasis on education came from my mother. Mother was the first member of her family to graduate from high school, and then only by shear determination. After attending a rural one-room eight grade school mother stayed home two years helping her father farm. She then found a way to pay her room and board during the four years she attended high school by being a domestic in the home of a cousin. That was hard work and shear determination.

While mother never attended college she was as well educated as many college graduates and became a strong community leader and a master politician, becoming a powerful mover and shaker all the way up into Washington politics. 

Her determination to educate herself rubbed off on her four children who each graduated from Michigan State University. She was proud of the achievements of her posterity and she was always teaching and encouraging. She taught us about the laws of nature and how to apply them in our lives. She taught us to ask God if we wanted to learn about His laws and kingdom. The principles of learning, she taught, regarding both science and religion was the same. Then she encouraged us to act upon the knowledge we learned to better ourselves and become better members of our community.  

She encouraged us to follow Moses’ counsel and to “teach our children “the ordinances and the laws,” and to show them “wherein they must walk, and the work they must do.” Mother fully agreed with the encouragement we give our posterity to diligently seek for and study carefully “all things that pertain to the kingdom of God, of things both in heaven and in the earth, and under the earth; things which have been, things which are, things which must shortly come to pass; things which are abroad;” and to learn “words of wisdom” and to seek knowledge and learning “out of the best books words by both study and by faith.”

Mother taught that true education is a life long pursuit and did not end with a diploma and is an every day process of preparing our-self for the next stage of life. She taught us that “truth is “knowledge of things as they are, as they were, and as they are to come.” Mother had an unbreakable faith in her Savior, the Bible, in hard work and in the American way of life. Born in humble circumstances Mother rose to become a royal lady. She understood that obedience to ‘God’s Laws” would open the doors of heaven to her and to members of her family who choose to follow in her footsteps. And she always taught by example.

In choosing gifts for your graduate(s) this year choose wisely. Give them something more valuable then monetary gifts, give them of yourself, of your time, and of your counsel. They will cherish your gift of self long after the monetary gifts rust and are gone from their memory. And above all, be pleased, be proud, and enjoy the moment, moments that come far too seldom for most of us.