MAC Week 4 Other-A Round of Applause

This week, I witnessed one of those moments that restores your faith in humanity. One of those moments that make your eyes well up with tears of compassion, understanding and an incredibly profound shared experience. I was attending my little sister’s graduation at Florida State University. It’s taken her a long time to get her bachelor’s degree, because she chose to triple major. In the last 6 years she’s been faced with financial, emotional and physical stresses that could break any one of us, but she has persevered. Our family was delighted and excitedly cheered for her as she crossed the stage. Naturally, at a commencement ceremony of over 1400 graduates, attendees wait in anticipation for their graduate to cross the stage, then zone out for the remainder of the 2 hour ceremony. However, this commencement had something unique in store for us all.

Shortly after my sister’s name was called, a stunned silence filled the crowd, and then a roar of applause and cheers from both the graduates, their families, the faculty and friends. An auditorium of 20,000 people, cheering wildly for a stranger. There, at the front of the stage, stood a girl and her dog. A girl and her service dog.

I cannot imagine being this young lady’s parent or sibling at this moment. Certainly, they must have had some fear or apprehension at letting a blind student go off to a big university all by herself. Or even some anxiety during this young lady’s childhood, as they hoped for the best but prepared for the world. And now, in front of thousands, they recognized the power of will, drive and desire, and they didn’t recognize it alone.

20,000 strangers, with their cheers and applause sent the message to one young lady; “you accomplished something big and tough and we are proud of you”. In one moment, a girl and her dog, an unlikely pair on a graduation stage, were on top of the world, for they had accomplished the implausible, and everyone knew it.