2017 Graduation: Key Note Speaker-Amy Mosiman (Are you kidding me?)

 Rarely does our teacher's union president darken my door for a GOOD reason. I spotted him at the threshold in the middle of an ELA lesson. It was a mixed grammar and vocabulary instruction. "Forget to capitalize the beginning of a sentence again," I threatened my 4th graders, "and I will begin decapitating toes."  I directed their attention to Jeff. Their welcoming applause threw him off (or maybe it was the future fate of 4th grade toes that shook him up a bit) as he approached me. My normally chatty class was shockingly quiet. I'm high school basketball player tall. Jeff is NBA sports-star tall. They were very impressed. And curious. So was I.

It was that old E.F. Hutton commercial all over again. I had directed my students to an independent activity but all ears were trained to Jeff. "The senior class has requested that you be their commencement speaker," he said. I stared at him, baffled. My 4th graders stared at him, baffled. "You can say no," he added, "Others have." I breathed a sigh of relief. So I was just a relief pitcher...called up because of an elbow cramp. The seniors didn't actually WANT me to do it...I was just a back-up. Like using margarine on your popcorn when you were out of butter.  "No...you were their first choice," he assured me. Oh.

I had a month to prepare. I needed at least six months after dealing with the emotional bruising of having at least a dozen people ask, "Why would they choose you?" "Maybe start with an outline," my husband prompted. I instead dug out everything I had from my former 6th grade class. Their poetry. Pictures. Letters. Gifts. Referrals. I sat among this pile, wallowing in self-pity, willing the words to infuse into my heart and brain like smoke from a tribal fire. "Is the outline done," Brad asked at the end of Week 1. I glared at him. "Why don't we get you a new outfit for your speech," he suggested. That little shopping excursion marked the second time I would cry during the writing process.

1.  Pre-write
2.  Cry
3.  Rough draft
4.  Cry
5.  Revision
6. Cry
7.  Edit
8.  Cry
9.  Edit again
10.  Cry. Lose sleep. Over-eat.
11. Edit some more
12.  Final draft.
13. Vomit

"Too short." "Too long." "Too flowery." "Too graphic."

"Are we talking about your speech or your outfit," Brad grumbled as we exited the sixth store. "Let's just go with dress pants," he sighed, thrusting a pair at me. I walked out of the dressing room, empty-handed. "What was wrong with those," my exasperated husband asked. "You could see my panty-line," I explained. "How can I give a speech to over 700 people when 85 seniors will be sitting behind me, looking at my panty-line?" "It's going to be tough to give a speech when you haven't actually written a speech," he snapped back, "Who's going to care about your panty-line if there isn't a speech?"

The best graduation speech that I ever heard was from my daughter Savannah's friend Sam who wove stories about the class into her message. Drawing on that, I typed...cried...typed some more...hyperventilated...type-type-type, whimper-whine-wail, type-type-type...

"It's fourteen pages long," I told Brad.

Horror-struck, he asked, "How long does it take to deliver?"

 "Fourteen minutes."

"How long is it SUPPOSE to be?"

"Five to eight minutes," I answered, resorting to Step 8 in the writing process.

So long, meaningful quote from Billy Graham. Farewell to Bernie, the hardest-working girl in the 6th grade. Adieu to sweet Jessica and her meticulously-crafted book report dioramas. How painful to cut Casey and her shocked aversion to Boston traffic or Emma's (warped) memory of my swiping her clicky pen and bashing it against the classroom wall (I would NEVER do that!). I played tug-of-war for days about Dylan, finally refusing to give up my chance of practicing my Irish accent in front of a captive audience.

By the day of graduation, I was down to ten pages.

I showed up for practice at 9 that morning. "You don't need to be here, Mrs. Mosiman," the high school principal reassured me. "I have some things that I need the kids to do," I answered. I saw concern flash in his eyes. There was a reason that elementary teachers aren't typically chosen to deliver the commencement address.

I began fasting and dehydrating at 3 pm.

Bumbling my box of props, I climbed the stage steps at 7:10 and approached the podium, blew a bubble, and began my speech...not to over seven hundred people that I barely knew but to eighty...that I knew and loved. Together we snapped the Addams Family theme song, Nathan erupted from his seat to declare himself the God of War, Maggie and Jacob graciously read their poems from the 6th grade, I tossed some good-natured abuse at those who I knew would take it well, gave a half-eaten jar of organic peanut-butter to Matthew, and told story after story about how special they were. My speech. Their stories. My love. My words would never be enough.