Que Sera, Sera

This week's RemembeRED writing prompt from The Red Dress Club:

It's that time of year...graduation.

For this week's prompt we are asking you to remember a graduation.  It doesn't have to be yours and it doesn't have to be high school.

With a solid blast of Baroque trumpets as background, four-hundred and ninety eight of us followed Meryl Streep as though she was the Pied Piper.  Guided by the mortarboard perched atop her long auburn waves, we trekked like a flock of bats behind her:  up the hill from the field house, past the ‘Pard statue, across the campus’ one road and into our assigned seats in the grid of white chairs splayed out in front of the library like tombstones in a World War II cemetery.

When it was her turn to speak, she approached the podium, but before she uttered a word, her voice rang out in clear, sweet song:

When I was just a little girl
I asked my mother, what will I be
Will I be pretty, will I be rich
Here's what she said to me.

Que Sera, Sera,
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours, to see
Que Sera, Sera
What will be, will be.

The actress’ a cappella rendition of Doris Day’s classic was an apt lesson for all of us that day.  Perched on the brink of the rest of our lives, we certainly did not know then (nor do we ever really know) what awaits us around the next bend.  Twenty-six years later, that lesson still rings true for me.  More important, I know--as I believe I knew then--that no matter how bumpy the path, my family and friends, my quality education, and my gut will always help to steer me in the right direction.  After all, they haven’t failed me yet.

Que Sera, Sera,
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours, to see
Que Sera, Sera
What will be, will be.

Remembe(RED) is the memoir meme of The Red Dress Club.  Thanks for reading...and feel free to offer thoughts, ideas and/or constructive criticism.  I appreciate hearing what you have to say.