We witnessed an event this past Sunday that made us proud. Our daughter-in-law Robyn received her medical degree and now can write the initials M.D. behind her name. I suppose we can’t take any credit for this happening except for the fact that she is married to our son and he had the good fortune, or is it wisdom, to marry someone with the intelligence and drive to get to this point.
Fifty-nine medical students graduated with this class, and it was fun watching each one being conferred and called with the title “Doctor” as he or she walked away with the diploma in hand. As graduation ceremonies go, it was similar to most any of them. High-powered academics on campus participated in the ceremony, and the keynote speaker had been born and raised in North Dakota who now bore the title of professor and chair of the Department of Plastic Surgery at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.
His speech, “Being the Best You Can Be”, was good enough but was sprinkled with the garden variety of jokes such as when he admonished the class to never prescribe sleeping pills and laxatives at the same time. Our son Clint said that the University president usually tells that joke each year, but this fellow beat him to it. To sum the day up, it was an event to which I’ll never be a part of again, so I tried to make the most of it.
