Grace Minutes

When I started college, students (okay, female students) still had curfews. We were expected to be in our dorms by midnight on week nights (a little later on weekends). Luckily, there was a little flexibility built into the system. Each semester, we were given 15 extra minutes that we could use to extend our curfew. They were known as “grace minutes.”

     These grace minutes couldn’t be given away. They couldn’t be stored up from semester to semester. When the term ended, they were gone.

     Somehow, of all my college experiences, I remember the grace minutes the best. There was the time a group of us piled in a taxi and arrived, breathless, just as our grace minutes were about to expire.

     Grace minutes were precious because they were so rare. And they were treasured because they brought with them a sense of finality—of something that couldn’t be regained.

     These last few weeks in the school year are your grace minutes. Just look around. The high school seniors celebrate their grace minutes every day. From now until graduation, everything is a “Last”—the last issue of the school newspaper, the last history paper, the last prom. Seniors are treasuring the time they have together. And you are watching with a bittersweet sensation as you watch these (mostly) mature young people get ready to take on the world.

     But there are other grace minutes. The veteran teacher who has changed so many lives with her excitement about reading has decided this will be her last year. And even as you think about hiring a new staff member, you know no one will ever quite replace her combination of acerbic wit and dedication to her students. So you stop by her classroom one more time, just to enjoy these grace minutes of her last few sessions with students.

     In the office, you say hello to a parent volunteer signing in for her regular work in a classroom. She has had a child in this school for the last 14 years, and sometimes it seems as though she is here more than you are. But her last child is heading off to middle school. So you invite her to stop by your office for a cup of coffee so you can enjoy the grace minutes of a community member who gives new meaning to the word teamwork.

     The start of the year brings a special excitement. But year-ends have their own rhythm and their own rewards. These are your grace minutes. Enjoy them.

—Kris Amundson
Kris Amundson is a writer living in Alexandria, Virginia and is a regular contributor to The Parent Institute publications.

Copyright © 2004 The Parent Institute®, a division of NIS, Inc.
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