Love in Photographs

1. Cue Pomp and Circumstance

May 16, 2015

    There were many different reasons to explain why I was standing in the midst of the other 278 people graduating from Harvard. The most obvious reason would be the fact that I'm graduating; summa cum laude, in fact. There's also the fact that I had chosen, around this time four years ago, to move as far away as physically possible from the life I'd recently learned to forget. There's also the fact that the work I'd done as a result of hating my surroundings so much as a teenager resulted in quite the sum of money applicable to my college tuition.

    Firstly, I'd like to inform you of the reasoning behind all of this. Graduating from college is normal. Hating your surroundings and everything about your life as an angsty teenager is normal. Not knowing who your father is or if he's even alive is even normal in today's society. Having a mother who hates your very existence and drinks away her responsibilities is a little less normal. Therefore, I spent most of my days from the time I was able to be on my own away from my own home. Most of the time, I'd spend my evenings with my grandfather, who'd tried time and time again to acquire custody of me, but due to the wonderful 'system', hopelessly failed. For all intents and purposes, my grandfather was my father. He was even more of a parent  to my mother, but the loss of my grandmother when she was barely older than I am now turned her occasional drinking into problematic drinking.

    My grandfather was a curious old man. When I say old, I mean in his actions more than his actual age. My grandfather was 59, but he was definitely wise beyond his years. He'd already adopted the habit of telling his elaborate stories more than once a day, and then just about every other day. The thing was- he used the same exact stories to present a completely different lesson. It didn't matter what issue I was going through, one of his few stories was bound to have an applicable learning opportunity.

    Grandpa Jack had a knack for knowing exactly what was going through my head and when exactly he needed to bring it up. When I was preparing to tell him about my options for college, he told me he knew about what I was feeling and told me his opinion on what I should do. Needless to say, I'm here on the east coast, miles from home, accepting my degree from Harvard.

    Grandpa also hadn't told me of his devious plan to travel all the way from Alabama to surprise me at my college graduation, acquiring a ticket from my roommate/best friend, middle name twin, and his accomplice, Grace Smith. And by this stage in the shock response, I was bordering on tears.

    "Well? Aren't you excited, Rhi?" Grace asks me, nudging my elbow as the commencement speaker drones on. We both look back up to the crowd, where my grandpa sits right near the isle, sticking out like a sore thumb dressed in his jeans and only dress shirt in a sea of suits.

    "I'm thrilled, Grace. But, you should've told me. You know how I am with spontaneity." I scold her lightly, but she rolls her eyes, ignoring my criticism.

    Grace Elizabeth Smith was afforded every luxury life could give. She looked like she was plucked straight out of the 1920s with dark brown hair that she always wore up in a classy bun, dark brown eyes, and porcelain skin. She was tiny but graceful, and could command a room better than any other 5'4" individual I'd met. She grew up in Savannah, Georgia, in a very large home on a very large lot with a very large sum of money. Her grandfather's grandfather had started a business dealing with manufacturing of farm goods and the empire was still going strong. Grace's father, Richard W. Smith, was the current Executive CEO of Smith Agriculture Services & Company, and Grace's brother, Matthew, was in line to acquire the same fortune.

    As for the women in Grace's family, they'd all found their so-called 'niches' in whatever it was they enjoyed doing day-to-day. For Grace's grandmother, it was baking. Her grandfather had connections with executives from the Wilson  baking company, who then worked with Grace's grandmother to come up with new and innovative products in the world of baking. Grace's mother had a similar entrepreneurial experience when Grace's father introduced her to the owner of a company interested in investing in the field of cosmetics.