Anonymous wrote:Maybe back in the day when you could accomplish more financially with just a high school degree, high school graduations were more of a big deal for a family. But these days, there really is an expectation that to make it in this economy, you need to get an advanced degree. A high school degree is a stepping stone for the immediate family to acknowledge, but not so much an accomplishment worthy of flying in elderly relatives.

Anonymous wrote:When I see a graduate who has an entourage I think it is tacky. It seems obnoxious to me. I think it is an accomplishment that should be celebrated in a more intimate, humble setting.

Anonymous wrote:When I see a graduate who has an entourage I think it is tacky. It seems obnoxious to me. I think it is an accomplishment that should be celebrated in a more intimate, humble setting.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a former hospice and chronic care nurse, I’m going to tell the last few posters that palliative people often “choose” to die when their family members are not in the room. I can’t explain it, and I trust that many people who have experience in these areas will corroborate that there really seems to be a conscious part for these clients taking their last breaths.

+1, hands down. When I worked in palliative care this was the standard. Watched pot and all that. Sometimes you have to get family out of the room to hasten the act, and let them know that they are prolonging it when they stay.

Anonymous wrote:As a former hospice and chronic care nurse, I’m going to tell the last few posters that palliative people often “choose” to die when their family members are not in the room. I can’t explain it, and I trust that many people who have experience in these areas will corroborate that there really seems to be a conscious part for these clients taking their last breaths.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Count me as another one that feels high school graduations are not obligatory for anyone except the immediate family of the graduate. And really, OP, have your son reflect on how happy he's going to feel to have Grandma there while knowing/wondering in the back of his head if there was something she's not saying, some reason she didn't want to come, and she's there because she feels emotionally blackmailed. He really wants her there under those circumstances? Because he'll always wonder.

My grandfather was on hospice and declining quickly just before my graduation from college. My mother was at his side with her siblings waiting for the end. She was torn on what to do. I told her that it was 100% fine with me if she did not come to my graduation, that I would never hold it against her, and that my dad and brother being there was enough and I totally understood if she skipped it. She came anyway, flying in the morning of commencement with plans to fly back to him the next morning. She watched me walk and then during our celebratory dinner she received a call that he had died. It's been 15 years and I still feel terrible that she wasn't there for her father's final moments because she was at my event, even though it was her choice. I really, really hope that nothing I said or did influenced her decision one way or another. But we can't go back in time. Graduation just isn't that big a deal in the grand scheme of things.

Don’t continue to feel terrible about this. Your mom was there when it mattered, and your grandfather knew that. It’s quite possible that the timing of death with fewer people around was not coincidental. That’s the way it worked with the couple of deaths I’ve been close to.

Anonymous wrote:Count me as another one that feels high school graduations are not obligatory for anyone except the immediate family of the graduate. And really, OP, have your son reflect on how happy he's going to feel to have Grandma there while knowing/wondering in the back of his head if there was something she's not saying, some reason she didn't want to come, and she's there because she feels emotionally blackmailed. He really wants her there under those circumstances? Because he'll always wonder.

My grandfather was on hospice and declining quickly just before my graduation from college. My mother was at his side with her siblings waiting for the end. She was torn on what to do. I told her that it was 100% fine with me if she did not come to my graduation, that I would never hold it against her, and that my dad and brother being there was enough and I totally understood if she skipped it. She came anyway, flying in the morning of commencement with plans to fly back to him the next morning. She watched me walk and then during our celebratory dinner she received a call that he had died. It's been 15 years and I still feel terrible that she wasn't there for her father's final moments because she was at my event, even though it was her choice. I really, really hope that nothing I said or did influenced her decision one way or another. But we can't go back in time. Graduation just isn't that big a deal in the grand scheme of things.