Graduation

We graduated from elementary school at the end of the seventh grade. We had been told we would be leaders in high school, that we would excel in college. We celebrated with our first dance, on the threshold of young adulthood. I had a pale blue dress made of hand-embroidered material that my aunt had gotten in Jamaica or the Bahamas (or more likely K-Mart, knowing my aunt). I left my elementary school days behind the moment I split the entire back out of that dress at that dance, the one and only time I ever wore it.