Justin Graduates

Today was insane for Ken and me so we could be sure that we had everything in order so we could attend Justin's high school graduation ceremony. 


The ceremony was a typical high school graduation, but there were 8 co-Valedictorians so there were many speeches and I was bored out of my mind.  The girls were glad to be invited by Justin, but after a while, even they couldn't keep interested.  I didn't take my large camera, so we had no idea where Justin was sitting which left us surprised when his name was called.


After the ceremony, it took us a while to find him and his mother's family on the field.  Ken was touched that Justin seemed honestly happy to see him.  I was able to get a few good pictures, but the first one is my favorite.

 Justin found Ken's "normal" goofy picture beyond goofy, but he tolerated it for his dad.

We left shortly after we said hello to Justin. His mother had invited us to the after-party at her house just yesterday, so we got the girls home since they had school the next morning, and then we went to her house.  It was the first time I had ever been inside, and it was definitely weird.  Not so much the house as the people.  Justin was very glad that we were there, and we were able to chat and joke with him and his brothers.  Sheryl, Justin's mom, was weirdly sentimental and took pictures of me and Ken together and then with Justin.  This is not her normal behavior, and I'm still wondering about her motive.  Hopefully, I'll see those pictures posted at some point so I can steal them.


Now, I never offered my congratulations to Justin.  I could not bring myself to do it. I hugged him, and I was surprised by how clingy he was this night.  He has avoided Ken and me for the last three years because he didn't like our rules and his mother let him do whatever he wanted.  The child only graduated because the school literally gave him 25 credits to meet the requirements, and even with the gift of those units and decent grades, his GPA was only at 1.94.  This is not something I can be proud of.  I tried very hard to keep my opinion to myself so I wouldn't take away from Ken celebrating his son. Ken and I discussed it at length during the day, and he was disappointed as well, but he did point out that Justin did exactly what was expected of him by his mother and the school - nothing. 


I felt bad taking away Justin's "moment" with the girls as well, but I did NOT want them to think this was acceptable, and they know full-well that it will not be tolerated by me when they get to high school.  Taylor only has a couple more years before she's there, and Mandy is right behind her.  They understood the difference of celebrating Family and celebrating Accomplishment.  Sadly, there was no accomplishment for Justin. He did the bare minimum to get through, but now he is ill-prepared for the rest of his life.  We will just have to see what happens and see if he can become successful like many who hated K-12.