Forgive me this self-indulgence, everyone. It does not happen often.
On Tuesday, May 17, my daughter graduated from Barnard College, which for those who don’t know is the women’s liberal arts college at Columbia University in New York City. She graduated with a B.A. degree in Political Science. She wants a career in journalism, and she is getting a good start: She was hired by the New York Times as a paid intern for the summer. If there is an opening there when the internship is over, perhaps they will offer her a full-time job. But even if they don’t, that’s a hell of a first job to put on a resume. After a 10-day training period (which began yesterday), her dad and I will get to have her at home for three days before she starts work at the Times.
How hard she has worked, how strong she is, how smart, how determined and focused, and how much she cares about the world and making a difference, fills me with a kind of awe I can’t express, because I don’t know where it comes from. It’s as if she came into the world with this light already inside her, and as long as her dad and I didn’t mess it up completely, that light was going to shine one day. And I get to say that she is MY child. I am her mother.
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