Meghan Cappon, The Seattle School Bookstore Manager and wife of recent MACP graduate Peter Cappon, shares the poem she wrote on behalf of family and friends of The Seattle School graduates for the 2014 Commencement ceremony.

Watch the clip from 2014 Commencement

 

These grads have done it (hooray!)
but certainly not alone.
So I’m here to recognize those
who supported with blood, sweat, and bone.

Friends, family, parents, exes
wives, husbands, pastors, lovers
children, nurses, profs, therapists
co-workers, dogs, and all you others.

Here you sit to show your support,
or maybe you opted not to attend
or maybe you were not invited.
To all, present or absent, you I commend.

When your student stepped through the doors
at the corner of Elliott and Wall
you didn’t know the fun house that awaited you, too—
you didn’t know at all.

There was a hurricane of highs
the Valley of Very Low Lows
revelations, introspections
mountains of anxiety-laden sorrows.

As Allender and Friesen,
Chelle, Buber, and Roy
uncovered everyone’s hiding places,
Illuminated our ignorant joy.

You might have been a hand-holder
started sprouting mold from the tears
of students sobbing out their tragedy stories;
you became a pair of ears.

Perhaps you joined in the banter
about God, church, misuse, and fears.
You donned your theologian’s cap
and downed those holy beers.

Or maybe you opted to wait
for the psycho-storm to pass
while you put your nose to the grindstone
and worked off your … tuition payments.

Perhaps you are from an “origin”
from that back-home place
and had to make sense of the unravelling
over the phone and cyber space.

Or when your kids came home for Christmas
they psychoanalyzed you to pieces.
You were blamed, stone-walled, raged at
left hoping they wouldn’t name you in their thesis.

You kids of students have grown inches,
seen your parents change a lot.
Babies have been born into the program
felt all the feelings from their womby spot.

Spouses have been divorced,
others have been married.
Friendships have been lost—
some things are too heavy to be carried.

There have been world-rocking announcements—
someone’s gay or bi or straight,
no longer an evangelical,
gluten is now gone from the plate.

You have held, ignored, wept
come to your wits very end
celebrated, become a mild drunk
swam or sunk and then…

…you arrived at this day
—here or not—at Town Hall.
It turns out, not just as supporters,
but also having waded through it all.

You’ve looked into your own hearts
looked fears right in the face.
You’ve done your share of feeling
had to confront your truest place.

So cheers to you, my fellow companions
though you yourself did not enroll,
for all your personal work and the support you gave
as we all delved into culture, text, and soul.

Image of Peter, Meghan, and their son, Wesley. Family photo and Meghan’s headshot © Sparkfly Photography