Some wanted photographs.
Others simply wanted to hug me.
One young woman waited until everyone else had left.
She couldn’t have been older than eighteen.
She was crying.
“I’m pregnant.”
She lowered her eyes.
“I was going to drop out.”
I recognized that fear immediately.
The same fear I had carried for years.
I took both of her hands.
“No.”
She looked up.
“You don’t have to choose between being a mother and having a future.”
Tears streamed down her face.
“You really believe that?”
I smiled.
“I know it.”
Then I reached into my purse.
Folded carefully inside my wallet was the same graduation photograph that had changed my life.
I handed it to her.
“Keep this until you don’t need it anymore.”
She stared at the picture for several seconds before hugging it tightly against her chest.
Watching her walk away, I realized something that no diploma, award, or standing ovation had ever taught me.
