Deja` Vu All Over Again

The great New York Yankees’ baseball player and manager, Yogi Berra, is credited with saying: “It’s deja` vu all over again.”  De’ja` vu usually describes the feeling we get that we have experienced something before. 

My deja` vu experience occurred last week on June 14 in San Antonio, Texas as I watched my oldest granddaughter, Marcella Davis, graduate with highest honors from high school. Because her class was so large, the ceremony was held in a downtown sports arena.  As I watched Senior Class President Marcella receive her diploma and deliver her parting words to her fellow class members- telling them to embrace the future-it brought back a flood of memories. 

Flash back fifty-two years to a graduation ceremony on a warm June night in Webster, New York in a local sports arena– the school gymnasium. As salutatorian, my speech to our graduating class urged my classmates to move forward into the future with determination and hope. However, the one thing that is etched in my memory about that ceremony is how lousy I felt. I started out that day with chills, fever, and a miserable cold, along with an ugly fever blister on my upper lip. I pushed through to deliver my speech in spite of how bad I felt.  I would repeat that pattern many times in the years to come when I experienced one health crisis after another. 

After graduation I headed to Atlanta, Georgia to live with my sister’s family so that I could get secretarial training and a job. Marcella will attend the School of Business at Texas A&M University to earn her BS and MS so she can find her niche in the world of business.

The similarities don’t end there, when I got home already tired from an overbooked schedule and an early morning plane ride, I started feeling sick. You guessed it – I ended up with chills, fever, and a miserable infection along with an ugly fever blister on my upper lip.  However, some things do change— this time I gave in to being sick and stayed home for four days giving myself permission to recuperate. Maybe I’ve learned a few things after all.