My epiphany was the heady conclusion of months of leading my Assumption high school batchmates in Silver Jubilee celebrations last Oct. 16. Twenty-five years after high school! How much of each of us remains the same, how much has changed. The journey brought us back to share a short period of time together...to celebrate the changes and cycle of life’s wonderful drama.
What a Journey! – this, the jubilant cry of homecoming day. A journey that has seen us travel great distances over miles to find new lives in foreign lands; of intellectual pursuits in our areers; of the fathomless heart as we learned about love, betrayals, forgiveness and compassion in our relationships; of commitments to the advocacies and missions of our choices; of steadfast faith as we faced sickness and death. We realize that while the distances have been great, many times the journey brought us, always, back to ourselves.
It’s been all of 25 years since high school. Each of us, adding to the prism of this journey, the uniqueness of the lives we have carved out. Like a kaleidoscope of images, high school memories – bittersweet, sentimental, joyful – filter down as we greeted, sang, dance, celebrated VELADA... the word that bespeaks an Assumption tradition of homecoming to celebrate an education rooted in the tenets of our founder Blessed (soon to be Saint) Marie Eugenie and a continuity of a whole community’s commitment to molding and educating women for others.
This day culminated the many years of fundraising of Batch 1980 for the Assumption Educational Development Fund (ADEF) to support the various mission schools of the Religious of the Assumption. A special year-long sponsorship partnership was also launched with Volvo (Viking Cars). For a whole year until Sept. 30, 2006, Volvo shall offer the current/ongoing cash discount or financing program for any brand new Volvo car sold to any Assumption alumna (or current enrollee) and their immediate family (or relative up to first degree of kindred). For every sale of a brand new car to an alumna, a corresponding amount will also be given to the mission schools.
It was a day to see the sisterhood of Woman at its best as we celebrated the feminine spirit seeking expression to illuminate the path to the future, a tomorrow that we seek to make more balanced and grateful. After all, the Assumption educational philosophy is to mold women who can transform society.
And so when I woke up the morning after, high with the love and friendships rekindled, I realized that the true gift of such an event was not the meeting, but the process of getting to know each other once more...with feeling. It is after all, during midlife that women seek to redefine directions, compare notes, turn once more to women friends for nurturance and inner solace. Despite having husbands and families, women friends are the comfortable cushion of similar shared experiences that have meaning and defines what we are and what we continue to become.