Graduated!
Sunday April 26th 2009, 8:51 pm
Filed under: Family

imgp7522(I’m throwing in some pictures that would have been in Friday’s post if I’d been home near my own computer. Our son Richard graduated with a minor in organ performance, and the chance to play on the Mormon Tabernacle Organ was his favorite professor’s graduation gift to his star pupil.)Mormon Tabernacle Organ

My husband’s boss let him take the time off to fly with me for the kids’ big day. This was a real gift, considering all the time Richard missed while I was ill–with, again, his boss’s insistence that he not feel guilty about spending every day at my bedside in the hospital. He did work from there on his laptop, at least.

Anyway, after the Convocation Thursday (the perp walk was by college the next day), there was a family trying to capture the day taking turns holding the camera, one person out of the photo each time. There was the younger kid, about 14, playing the standard role at that age of obnoxious  teasing little brother, and the parents and the older brother were trying hard to laugh it off and be patient and understanding in the crowds and in the emotional intensity of the day. (And when I say crowds, I counted about 100 empty seats in a building that seats 22,700. We weren’t going anywhere fast.)

Noticing them, I asked if they’d like me to take a picture and let them all be in it together. Oh! Yes! Thank you!

And then, being me, I stumbled as I tried to get them into the camera frame, and said, Here. You better let him do this, he’s steadier. Richard!  And Richard stepped over to snap it for them.

They all gave this posed-smile look and I thought, hey, we can do better than that: so I stood on my tippy-tippy-toes to give my 6’8″ husband bunny ears behind his back while he aimed the camera, grabbing the role of  the little brother for them. But do you know how hard it is to give bunny ears behind a tall guy wearing a fedora on his head?

It worked. They cracked up.  Best family shot ever, I’d say.


18 Comments so far
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Hee. Always causing trouble… 🙂

Comment by (formerly) no-blog-rachel 04.26.09 @ 9:25 pm

Wow for your son! You must have felt so proud! That’s something to savor for the rest of his life. 🙂

Comment by Beckett 04.26.09 @ 9:47 pm

Yay bunny ears! Yay Alison!!

Comment by Kelli 04.26.09 @ 11:44 pm

Wowed again! I’m moved when I hear my daughter practice her piano. I can’t imagine your emotion watching and listening to your son play that organ in such a setting! Could you even see see through the tears in your eyes?

Comment by LynnM 04.27.09 @ 12:56 am

So many choices (organ stops)! Where to begin, where to begin!

You know, bridal gowns are designed with fancy details on the back because that is the aspect that is seen the most by the congregation. They should have fancy shirts for organists. too.

Comment by Barbara-Kay 04.27.09 @ 4:42 am

What an exciting time! Glad you were able to make it and be the proud mom when your son played the organ.

I’d say your husband’s boss is one nice guy!!! He is to be commended, for sure!

Comment by Joansie 04.27.09 @ 5:14 am

Congrats again to the grads and the proud parents. What an honor to play on such a grand “stage!”

And leave it to you to make someone else’s day!

Comment by Channon 04.27.09 @ 5:46 am

Congrats to the grads!
Hahaha sounds like you had a great time!

Comment by Alicia 04.27.09 @ 8:53 am

Looks all the comments ahead of me said it all! Too bad you don’t have a photo of that family cracking up. How on earth did you reach high enough to give Richard bunny ears?

I think I goofed the other day on your previous brief post — I didn’t leave any humor. So today I’ll leave two:

A woman walks into the Post Office to buy stamps.
“What denomination?” asks the clerk.

“Oh, good heavens! Have we come to this?” said the woman. “Well, give me 50 Baptist and 50 Catholic and one Methodist.”

A boy is writing a paper on childbirth and asks his parents, “How was I born?”

His mother awkwardly answers, “The stork brought you.”

“Oh,” says the boy. “Well, how were you and Daddy born?”

“Oh, the stork brought us, too, and Grandpa and Grandma.”

The boy begins his paper, “This report has been very difficult to write due to the fact that there hasn’t been a natural childbirth in my family for three generations.”

Comment by Don Meyer 04.27.09 @ 10:38 am

Oh, my my my! What a son! (What an organ!) What a mom and dad, too! Yay for all. 🙂

Comment by Toni Smoky-Mountains 04.27.09 @ 11:09 am

Very nice. You gotta love that spouse-height-difference humor (ask me how I know)!

Comment by Jocelyn 04.27.09 @ 1:13 pm

Thank you for being an angel and getting that family a photo of them all together. It was a totally unselfish thing to do and you are to be commended. If we all took care of each other that way the world would be such a better place. Thanks.

Comment by Leslie 04.27.09 @ 1:15 pm

What great photos! Oh the stories his grandchildren will hear about the time he got to play the Mormon Tabernacle organ! How exciting!

Comment by Jody M 04.27.09 @ 2:45 pm

I am surprised you can reach that high…but I guess you have years of practice don’t you. 😉

Comment by karin 04.27.09 @ 5:16 pm

I’d have played peek-a-boo around his middle, if I were you. You had to have been one-step-up from Richard to get those bunny ears above his dapper fedora.

Comment by Karen 04.27.09 @ 5:48 pm

You must be so proud! Then you did a good deed, with some help from Richard. Sounds like a normal weekend for you two. 🙂

Comment by Sonya 04.28.09 @ 8:23 am

Wow, that is an honor! He must be a talented young man.

Comment by Renee 04.28.09 @ 2:13 pm

Oh my gosh, what a priviledge!!! How proud you must be!! Maybe he will be playing for the Choir at some time in the future :).

Comment by LDSVenus 04.30.09 @ 4:42 pm



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