My wife Sally and I traveled to Chicago during the first week of June for our beloved granddaughters’ graduations from Glenbrook North High School and Maple Junior High School. We burst with love and pride for both girls. Over the years Sally and I babysat for them, vacationed with them, and have watched them both grow into accomplished young women.
Abby, 14, graduated with honors from Maple Junior High School and will follow her sister Anna’s career at Glenbrook North High School this fall. We got to see her play her blue guitar in her own band in a park in Oak Ridge over the weekend.
Of course, after she walked proudly down the aisle in her graduation robe.
To see us with Abby is to see our best wishes and love for her.
Sally led an informal family celebration to share lovingly wrapped presents and graduation cards with both young women that brought tears of joy to us both.
Sally is known to all of our five grandchildren as “chocolate grandma.” So, of course, she had to find chocolate treats proclaiming, “Congratulations to the Class of 2023.”
Our celebration with Anna was a touch bittersweet because she is going off into the world to study bioengineering at Northeastern University in Boston.
Watching her pursue academic excellence was pure joy for us. She earned membership in the National Honor Society and as an Illinois Scholar, a Glenbrook Scholar, and a National Merit Finalist, for which she was awarded a scholarship. She is a sweet, wonderful young woman who made many special friends throughout her career in the Northbrook schools. Her father and mother love her dearly.
If you get the chance, don’t miss the seminal events like these in the lives of your grandchildren.
