By Gianni Risper
Recently, I graduated from high school. As you know, walking at graduation is one of the most memorable experiences in your life. As I walked into the Breslin Center, I saw all of the people in my class. We milled around in the underbelly of Breslin Center, we took pictures and reminisced over the last year of high school and we stood on the threshold of the rest of our lives. I then remembered what I told a friend a few months earlier. I told him that walking didn’t matter as long as I graduated high school as early as possible. I was gravely mistaken as I walked out into the stadium and looked around at everybody’s family waving and cheering for them, for us. That feeling was the greatest thing I had ever felt.
Elated, I walked onto the Breslin Center floor with the rest of my class and sat down to hear the valedictorians speech’s. Our class had 7 valedictorians who all gave speeches about what life for them was like at Eastern. I’d like to think that if we had one valedictorian that they could sum up what these 7 people had to say, but it took each of them to fully take every experience that you had in the last 4 years of high school and put it into words. One girl’s speech left a great impression as she accurately expressed the feeling you got when you saw the building for the first time.
That building was and always will be a part of me. As the last days of my senior year rolled around and I realized that I would probably never see some of the people who went there ever again. I began to think if I should have done more things to be remembered by people but then I realized that I left a lasting impression on everyone I met and they would remember me for a long time. With that in mind, I sat and listened to what these people had to say and waited to walk.
With mounting anticipation, we all waited for two hours for the time for us to get our diplomas. One by one we stood in rows until the time came for each one of us to walk the stage for our diplomas. As I stood in this massive line I found my family and was surprised I could hear my mother calling my name from in the stands over 500 other people blaring air horns and shouting. At this point, I realized how proud she was to see me in my cap and gown, which I thought I looked ridiculous in. I walked up gave the man my name walked on the stage and was congratulated by the more important figures of the Lansing School District and worked my way up to the superintendent, T.C Wallace with whom I took a picture with. In hindsight, I’d rather have taken with my principle, Mrs. Diggs, who worked very hard to see all of us graduate. I grabbed what I thought was my diploma but it was only the cover to save time. I’d have to scramble to get it later. As we went back to our seats, I hardly heard anything but my mother screaming my name and knowing how proud she felt. The graduation ceremony ended, I got my diploma and walked out of the Breslin Center tunnel and into the rest of my life.
Gianni Risper is a 16 year old graduate of Eastern High School in Lansing, MI.
