congratulations always

Yesterday it became official.
My husband is now a Library and Information Technician with a Systems Technology concentration.
I know this for a fact because I was there when a host of enrobed students marched in to Pomp and Circumstance and he was one of them.
He was wearing that strange hat that all graduates wear. Not as strange as the Doctors on the platform but still an odd fashion statement. The tassel dangling in front of their eyes I get though. It must be there to symbolize a goal, always just inches away but ever before your eyes, sort of like a carrot before a pony. At least that's how I see it.
Being a student is never easy and being an older student changes that fact not a whit.
Hard work is hard work.
Discipline takes discipline.
Balance is...... well, impossible for the student. Sacrifice and focus hold sway.
But, he made it.
He hung in there.
We all did.
And the reward at the end is something I never expected.
I knew I would feel relief.
And pride. He made the Deans List.
I knew I would feel jealous.
But I never knew I would feel this sense of newness; this sense of surprise.
I wasn't sure at first what I was feeling and then I knew.
I am seeing my husband through a new window, framed by his accomplishment.
I am recognizing something within my husband that Brian Minter, the University Chancellor referred to in his address to the graduates. He said that there is one thing that will allow you to rise above the ordinary and that one thing is passion. Find and pursue passion he urged.
I am feeling so happy that my husband has stirred up the passion that lies deep within.
I looked up the word congratulations and it means to take joy in the success and good fortune of another.
Congratulations always my dear.