6 | MAY 28 • 2020
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C
ongratulations on
your graduation! We
at the Jewish News are
so proud of all your amazing
accomplishments and the
terrific ways
each and every
one of you have
contributed
to the Metro
Detroit Jewish
community. We
are honored to
feature you in
our annual Cap & Gown issue,
and we hope this can provide
a small moment of pride in the
absence of our community’
s
normal graduation festivities.
Obviously, this is not the way
any of you wanted this year to
go down. Given the complete
shutdown of everything caused
by COVID-19, and the general
state of the world you are
graduating into, this probably
feels less like a triumphant
victory and more like barely
stumbling across the finish line,
only to find a sheer drop ahead
of you.
There’
s no denying these are
difficult times. Most of you
were planning to go to college
in the fall and are now unsure
if you’
ll even be able to set foot
on a campus by then. Others
were planning to travel abroad,
to Israel or elsewhere, and now
you’
re not sure if you can even
get on a plane.
That crucial threshold of
life, the moment when you
are able to leave the nest and
put all your accomplishments
and ambitions to use as you
blaze your own trail through
the world, has been put on
potentially indefinite hold.
Maybe your families have
been forced to encounter the
horrendous effects of COVID-
19 up front, either because
someone close to you has
contracted the illness, is a front-
line worker doing their part to
fight it off, or has had their jobs
and livelihoods disrupted or
shattered as a result. For many
of us, this is not only a time of
uncertainty and inconvenience,
but also of real fear.
But does any of this mean
you’
re less deserving of the
praise and promise that
comes with every high school
diploma? Absolutely not. And
here’
s the thing: In spite of
everything, we can still live.
And we can still live with our
Jewish values intact.
As you go forward in life,
you will find opportunities
to fulfill the lessons of our
ancestors: of tikkun olam,
of tzedakah, of chesed and
kehillah. Finding new ways
to repair the world, to give
to the less fortunate, to build
a community even in these
current, terrible circumstances
when our communities seem
so fragile.
No matter the unfortunate
way in which it unfolds,
a graduation is still an
empowering event. You’
re
finding a path forward,
and you’
re doing it with the
strong foundations our Jewish
community has given you.
Mazel tov and kol hakavod!
May your journeys ahead bring
you happiness, and may you
help make the better world we
all so desperately need.
Editor’
s Note
To Our Grads…
Andrew Lapin
catch up. But what should she
do first? There’
s so much to do:
meal prep, dishes, laundry, check
in on extended family, pay the
bills, work, clean, check the news,
change out of her pajamas, exer-
cise, which she’
s been promising
herself she’
ll do as soon as she
has the time. The choice is over-
whelming. The guilt is ever-pres-
ent.
So she does what any exhausted
mom who puts her kids first all
day does: Sinks into the couch,
switches on something mindless
and doesn’
t move for the next few
hours. She’
ll try to convince her-
self to go to bed at regular inter-
vals, but it’
s just so nice and quiet
now. No one is fighting, complain-
ing or calling “Moooommy!” The
loudest thing is the Mom Guilt,
ever-present, which she’
s trying to
drown out with sips of wine and
desperate proclamations of “I need
this me time!”
And it’
s true, she does.
I keep thinking if normal life
earns us regular hardworking
moms one celebrated Mother’
s Day
per year, this pandemic has got to
be earning us at least a three-year
vacation … whether we tackled
the crafts or not.
did tell people about my
disabilities, no one put me down.
Whenever we had to meet outside
for group projects, and I
told my group I didn’
t drive, they
were accommodating. I had one
group tell me I could FaceTime
into the meeting.
My last semester at Oakland,
when I took four classes, was
definitely the hardest. I remember
one day when I was typing up
notes for an exam the next day,
I suddenly broke down crying
because I felt I wouldn’
t be ready.
But when I passed my classes, I
could breathe again.
About a week before gradu-
ation, I was able to take a tour
where the ceremony would take
place with a coordinator. She told
me what to expect during gradu-
ation. On graduation night I was
more excited than anxious, even
when the bagpipes played loudly
right next to me.
I’
d have to say it went a lot
smoother than my graduation at
MCC, where I forgot my name
card in the waiting area and had
to go back for it (making me
last but not least in getting my
degree).
Now out of college, I face one of
the hardest challenges of my life
— finding work. One of my
professors told me there weren’
t
many college teaching positions.
He also mentioned how some
previous history students work
in the writing industry because
they had to write so many papers.
I really liked writing papers for
classes, so I decided I’
d try to look
for work either
writing, editing or proofreading.
So far nothing has come to fru-
ition. Sometimes I wonder if
it’
s because I have autism or
because of my lack of experience.
Either way, I’
m not giving
up.
William Dash is a writer who lives in
Clinton Township. He’
s a member of
Temple Beth El in Bloomfield Township.
Mom Guilt from page 5
Not Giving Up from page 5
“I’ve always felt that just because
someone is given a diagnosis,
it does not mean they can’t go to
college.”