Graduation cards

There is a pile of your graduation cards in the top drawer of the china cabinet (the one you love so much-ha,ha). There are held in a stack by a rubberband and whenever I would notice them, it would make me a little sad because, of course, who knew this would have happened so shortly after graduation.
   I was looking for the one from Jake (I always feel funny calling him that-should I call him Jacob? But that sounds weird too) because I knew he wrote a lot in it and wanted to see how exactly he worded some of his advice about "experimenting" and stuff. I think I just wanted to see if you were a secret druggie or something. I know you would be so mad at me for saying that to you because you always got mad when I brought that subject up. Sorry! I decided this weekend to look through the stack of cards and I couldn't remember at all what the picture on the front of the card was so I started looking through the cards. (I shouldn't have been surprised to find later that it was at the very bottom of the stack-of course!)
   Side note: I remembered this before, but I wanted to write it down. When you were writing your thank-you notes, I asked you to read some of the cards in your "funny" voice, since you were looking through each card to see who sent you a card and we had written how much they gave you in the card. (One way I remember this voice is when you said in it, "I'm a high school graduate.") Anyway, it was funny hearing you read some of those because they said things like you should be proud of what you accomplished, the sky's the limit, etc. and all of that serious-sounding stuff sounded really funny in that voice. Thanks for doing that for me!
   Anyway, as I was looking through the cards to find the one from Jake/Jacob, I was reading some of what the cards said and some of what the people wrote to you. I'm guessing there were about 75 cards. Anyway again, I found it interesting how most of them were gushing about you and how wonderful you were and telling you best wishes in the next chapter of your life, may you follow God's path if they were from someone from church, good luck on your journey, etc. This made me think of when Pastor (Pastor Saxe used this term too) talks about someone's death at church or who he knew was a Christian, that they were "promoted" from this life to Heaven. It seems to me that graduation is the same idea as being promoted-you are completed with one part of your life and changing to another.
   What a privilege then it was for you (though of course no one could have ever realized at the time) to be able to receive notes and letters from your closest friends and family, telling you how great you are and how they wished you the best for your future, etc. Although it wasn't intended for what happened, I noticed that it still applied. I am sure it is not common when someone dies unexpectedly to follow such a crossroads in your life when people are telling you all of those wonderful things, kind of like a "send off". I am so glad that you were able to receive those well wishes and not just us from the sympathy cards after the fact. It's not as sad looking at them now-I actually liked looking at those more than all of the sad sympathy cards. 
   I'm also glad you completed all of your thank you cards in July so all of those people could get a special little handwritten message from you. I saw the one you sent to the Laws on their coffee table a few weeks ago along with some of your senior pictures and the program from your service. I am so glad for your senior year and that we were given time to celebrate you graduation and all that you accomplished. Praise God for that and praise God for you!