Westword, Volume XXXVIII

Dear Parents and Relatives and Friends,
 
Please share this with a graduate, even if they don’t want to read it! Just trust me!
 
Thank you,
 
Jay
 
—
 
Dear Class of 2025,
 
May has become June. Graduation. For some of you, it feels like it’s all happened very quickly. For others, it has taken forever to get here. Both are normal! But believe me, ready or not, it is here. And it will be gone before you know it, like a warm day in late summer when it feels like summer will never end – though changes lurk just around the corner.
 
Most of us old fogies (Anyone over 34 or so, eh?) spout the same tired rhetoric: These are the best years. Youth is fleeting. The real world awaits. You will be commended when commencement commences BLAHBLAHBLAHBLAHBLAH!
 
Listen. All of it is indeed true, but I know you don’t care. Prom, finals, sports tournaments, jobs, college prep, relationships and so much else has been on your plate and it all rightfully trumps supposed pep talks from old fogies.
 
But I beg you for a minute of your time; file these words somewhere in your memory, even if it’s the spam folder. You’ll find them one day and be glad they are there. Now gather ‘round…
 
On May 12, 1993, I watched the series finale of “The Wonder Years,” a classic coming-of-age TV show set in the late sixties and early seventies. Now, this was when you had to wait a week for each episode and if you missed it you had to get a VHS tape and…ah, don’t worry about all that, it’s on Netflix if you’re so inclined.
 
Anyway, it was the best two hours of television, ever. I was about to graduate from high school and so was the show’s protagonist, Kevin Arnold. At the end, narrating from 20 years later as always, he wrapped up six seasons of plotlines and revealed the futures of the principal characters – including the soon-to-occur death of his father. Against the backdrop of a suburban neighborhood growing dark in the setting Fourth of July sun, Kevin delivered this bittersweet coda:
 
“Growing up happens in a heartbeat. One day you’re in diapers, the next day you’re gone. But the memories of childhood stay with you for the long haul. I remember a place…a town…a house like a lot of other houses…a yard like a lot of other yards…on a street like a lot of other streets. And the thing is, after all these years, I still look back…with wonder.”
 
Then a little kid’s voice interrupted, asking him to play catch. “I’ll be right there.” Fade to black.
 
The goose bumps return every time. Just typing it and remembering again.
 
So much I didn’t know, watching wide-eyed. Just four months later, I would lose a parent. Her namesake, my first child, would be born fourteen years (May 12 exactly!) after watching that final “Wonder Years” episode. That namesake just graduated from Westwood High School herself. The first version of this column was written when she was two.
 
So much I didn’t know. Like Kevin, I had yet to meet The One (The Gem!) Unlike Kevin, I would stay and live in my hometown. And like Kevin, I suppose I’ve done some narrating about it all, looking back while looking around and ahead.
 
I was just 18, but it all hit me like a ton of bricks. I was moved – wide-eyed was misty-eyed by the end, and it’s only gotten worse with time. Ask me my favorite TV show and I’ll answer truthfully – but then I may lie and mention the onions I just chopped.
 
Graduates, my wish is that something moves you too. Jimmy V told us that every day we should laugh, we should cry, and we should think. Be it a show, a song, someone’s words, a memory, a deep talk with someone, whatever it is. May emotions be part of your day. May you keep marching forward, with clear eyes and full hearts.
 
You will experience the people and places. You will memorize and forget the faces. And some day – yeah, when you’re an old fogie – you too, will look back. With wonder.
 
On behalf of this great community, congratulations! Godspeed! Good luck in all you do, everywhere you go. You are a part of Westwood forever. And Westwood, forever, is a part of you.
 
Westwood Living? No…thank YOU for living in Westwood. See you next month, and I look forward to hearing from you any time at jayresha@comcast.net (and look away if I’ve been chopping onions!)