In a few short hours, I am going to walk across the stage and be graduated from my college as a Doctor of Jurisprudence.  Most of my colleagues will join me to walk.  A few will not.

Sure, graduation is a highly choreographed event that has little actual relevance, but these grand celebrations season an otherwise bland life.  We pause ordinary time and transform it from ordinary into extraordinary.  We do this to recognize accomplishment, and we set apart time and space to honor achievement.  Otherwise, we may as well get a degree at Phoenix University.

This degree, unlike any other, is very surreal to me because as the wife says, it will be my last.  So today, I pause and consider the monument of today.

Today is special to me because I know that I could not have done this without my wife.  She left the security of her post as the homemaker to financially support this endeavor.  She lent her shoulder for me to rest on after long nights of studying.  She brought me blankets, on the couch, on 1L sleepless nights.  She listened to all of my complaining when I over-concerned about being jobless.  She tolerated my incessant curiosity about whether I was doing the right thing.  She remained resilient through six one-month periods of finals when I was insanely volatile.  She gave emotional, spiritual, intellectual, financial support to me through all of this, and I am humbled to have such a wife.