It’s May, the pinnacle of spring, a time of renewal and youthful vigor. Traditionally, it’s a month for weddings and graduation – milestones symbolic of life moving forward.
Today I am attending one of those graduations. I’ll be watching a family member walk across the stage, diploma in hand as she enters a new phase of her life. That person: my mother-in-law, Terri Colby, age 56.
“Mom” will receive her associate’s degree in (gasp) math from Butler Community College, a school she first attended nearly 40 years ago. When she recently re-enrolled after a long hiatus, her daughter -- my wife, Liana – asked her if she would take the walk when she graduated.
“Heck yeah,” she answered.
The time has come today and her family will be there to cheer her on. Afterwards, we’ll all gather at the clubhouse in the retirement village where she and her husband, Rick, live and celebrate “Mom’s” accomplishment. It will be a change of pace for someone unaccustomed to being in the spotlight.
There are a lot of performers in our family –show boaters, muzzle loaders and carnival barkers who relish in center stage. “Mom” is the wallflower who sits quietly in the background, smiling and giggling as others command attention. I think we need loud personalities to bring vividness to our world, but we also need mild, moderate people like “Mom” to give balance.
She’s not a drama queen, not the type to stir controversy. This good-humored woman is the stalwart of our family, the linchpin from which all paths lead to and fro – a role that her mother, who passed away a few years ago, used to fill. When others in the family get carried away by their emotions and feel out to roll heads, “Mom” is the quiet, sensible one who restores calm and makes peace. When others find fault with somebody, she’s the one who can find the good in that person.
Recently, I was surprised to learn that this quiet, reserved person used to get in trouble for talking too much, while attending Dodge Elementary School (her favorite school ever) in Wichita. Her first-grade teacher often had to tell young Terri to place her name in the chatter box.
In the early ‘70s when her family moved to Augusta, “Mom” was singled out by her teachers for her prodigious talent for mathematics. Parents would call the high school looking for someone to tutor their children in math and teachers would direct them to Terri Dee Livesay (pronounced Lev-a-see). She started out as a volunteer tutor and soon, people were paying for her services.
College was never emphasized in her family. Getting good grades was just something she did because she was a good, dutiful kid who inherited her mother’s mild temperament. However, as an 18-year-old student, fresh out of high school in the fall of 1973, she enrolled at the school, then known as Butler County Community College.
Life took her on other paths. She married, had kids, divorced, re-married. I used to think she made a mistake, not finishing her degree. “She could be an accountant by now, making great money and living in a nice, big house,” I thought. I didn’t know she had simply put her plans on hold.
She considered being a mother to be her main job. “Mom” was the type of person to take a job as a lunch lady at her kids’ elementary school so she would be closer to them during the day. Later, when she became unhappy with her youngest son’s school, she pulled him out and started homeschooling him.
But that kid is on his own now. That prompted “Mom” to go back and finish the few remaining hours she needed to get her degree.
“My youngest left the nest,” she said. “The time was right.”
I figured after getting her AA degree, “Mom” might call it a day, but I’ve heard she intends to go on with school. Not sure what her plans are, but I think she has designs on Fort Hays State University where she can take many of her classes on-line. Whatever decision she makes, it will be the right one.
“Mom” has always been the one supporting her family in their endeavors. She has attended pre-school, elementary, middle, high school and college graduations. She’s been to weddings, baby showers and kid’s birthday parties for family members. With her children and their spouses still aspiring toward new things and her grandchildren growing rapidly, Mom will again be everybody else’s cheerleader.
But today is all about her.
