My graduation—not.
Yesterday morning my dear friend Gay called me.
“Oh Tania,” she said. “I just heard the news of San Francisco’s lockdown for the virus. I am so sorry. I can’t imagine you without walking.”
“Oh, I’m fine, Gay. Exercise and walking are exempt,” I was very pleased to report. I thought about the air blowing from the Pacific Ocean across my face during my walk to the Golden Gate Bridge that morning.
We continued talking, and she told me what was happening on her side.
“My whole family is coming home from around the country. School has been canceled.”
She was actually worried about the group limit of ten people. Gay and David’s kids and grandkids live in a fabulous family-housing creation on their property near Boston.
“Aidan might not even have his college graduation if this is not resolved by May.”
“Well you know,” I said. “I never had a graduation from Berkeley.”
“What? Aidan would enjoy hearing this story! Tell me, and then write it up.”
“Well, the US invaded Cambodia and Laos in the spring of 1970, and the whole University went on strike.”
“I remember something now. We talked about it when you and I were there some years ago.”
Gay and I had walked through the countryside in Laos in early 2005, passing huge craters where American bombs had fallen, seemingly in random patterns. Incredibly, the people told us they were grateful because these “ponds” now provided a source of water after the rains. It was just one example of their incredible optimism. Expecting to be hated, we were greeted with warmth and affection everywhere. It was an incredible experience.
In another remarkable case of synchronicity, at that same time David had flown out and met us in the Bangkok airport. He was on his way to help people who were suffering after the tsunami that had devastated Thailand just weeks earlier. That action led to the founding of his global volunteer nonprofit, All Hands and Hearts, whose work has just been interrupted by the current crisis.
But I am digressing and want to return to Berkeley in 1970.
“We had to protest that invasion and never went to class again. The mathematics department supported us wholeheartedly, and the school shut down. We didn’t have a graduation. Most of us never saw the inside of our campus again. There was no farewell, no sense of celebration.”
“What happened?”
“Well, three months later, the US pulled out. But it was too late for our graduation.”
“But how did you finish anyway?”
“Hard to imagine, isn’t it? It was before the Internet even existed. And the cell phone was even further from anyone’s imagination. We couldn’t do virtual education. We couldn’t have classes online or with Zoom.”
“So what did you do?”
“I barely remember. We would post notes on the outside of buildings and meet in cafés or on the lawns. Somehow, we figured it out.”
“So did you ever have a graduation?”
“Well, in 1990, twenty years later, Berkeley did hold a graduation for those of us who didn’t get one the first time. But what really broke my heart was that my father never got to see me graduate. He died before that second chance.”
And I didn’t think of it while talking to Gay, but the 50th anniversary of that day is coming up. This June marks exactly 50 years since the graduation that didn’t happen, and a big celebration was planned. Now who knows if it will be held.
Perhaps my graduation was just not meant to be celebrated.