Beginnings and Endings

Life's big moments emphasize the importance of its little ones.

Last week was big.

Eldest graduated from gymnasium and we laid Herself’s eldest uncle to rest. We had a full house: my sister and her husband and their two adult kids flew in from America for the graduation and were with us for most of the week.

Eldest’s last exam took place that Monday morning. Following Danish tradition, the whole family gathered to meet her with flowers and champagne as she emerged triumphantly from that final test of her primary education. 

Eldest’s maternal grandmother placed the graduation hat upon her.  She’ll be wearing it all summer: that’s also part of the tradition.

The school had set aside an area where families could sit with their students, sip champagne, and nibble on strawberries.  We spent about 45 minutes with Eldest and a few of her closest friends, taking turns signing the inside of her hat.  Her best friends would later bite the visor: there are a lot of traditions and I don’t understand all of them. Nor do I question them.

We took her out to a sushi restaurant that night to celebrate.  Didn’t see much of her the rest of the week, which is apparently also normal.  There are a lot of parties.  There’s much to celebrate.

Her schedule was so frantic, in fact, that the only evening we could schedule a celebratory family dinner with her in attendance was the Thursday evening before her graduation. That had been etched into all the family calendars ages ago.

Unfortunately, it turned out to be the same Thursday on which funeral rites were held for her great uncle—Herself’s own uncle, my mother-in-law’s elder brother.

He was ninety years old when he died. He’d led a rich and independent life, very much his own man, living on his own terms right up to the end. He was the sort of man who filled every room he entered by sheer force of presence, the sort of man who called every male a knægt (lad) and every woman a tøse (chick) without anyone ever taking offense. He was a master carpenter by trade, a man’s man, builder of his own house. He was devoted to the wild animals around his forest home and spent a small fortune feeding them, which ensured his devotion was reciprocated. He loved music and singing and was sure to lead at least one song at every family gathering. He had an odd but endearing habit of tracking people’s ages in months instead of years.

Adored by his family, beloved by his friends, his loss was neither tragic nor unexpected but deeply saddening because it was a very large loss. The family has a great hole in it now.

The little church in Copenhagen in which his funeral was held was full. The priest eulogized him beautifully—and with ample references to, and echoes of, his mischievous humor. At his own request, his coffin was borne out of the church by his brother, children, and a couple of grandchildren while everyone sang along to We’ll Meet Again.

He was buried alongside his parents at a cemetary not far from the church, and after the burial the wake—or “burial beer” as it’s called in Danish—was held in the church’s social rooms.

Herself, Youngest, Sister-in-Law and I had to make our apologies and leave early to prepare for Eldest’s celebratory graduation dinner. Everyone was very understanding—this was family, after all—and the deceased’s own brother and children assured us he would quite insist on our celebrating Eldest very enthusiastically. Mother-in-Law stayed on at the wake a bit longer: I marvel at her. She’s an eighty-year-old woman who buried her older brother in the afternoon and was able to celebrate her granddaughter in the evening. That’s strong stuff. I hope my daughters have some of it in their blood.

I learned that family graduation celebrations like the one we held are called studentergilde. Usually they’re held in the weeks after the graduation. They range from family gatherings like our own all the way to massive catered affairs with DJs and dancing.

On Friday morning the whole family made its way to the school again, this time for the translokation.  I’ve come to understand that translokation means something like “matriculation,” but it certainly felt more familiar to me than the other graduation events had. 

It was the only event at which all the students from her graduating class and all their families were gathered, the business with the hats and champagne having been spread out over the week based on the kids’ exam schedules.

It took place at a vast sports hall around the corner from the school. Families filed in and occupied all the bleachers to overflowing, then the students filed in to an upbeat melody, parading around the empty chairs that filled the playing court before ultimately taking their seats in them.

Eldest was in the second row. We could see the back of her head from our spot in the bleachers.

There were some speeches, there were some songs, some awards were handed out, there were more speeches, there were more songs, and suddenly the kids were filing out of the arena and that was that.

We were told to walk over to the school parking lot where we could watch them board their “student wagons” and cheer them on as they drove off.

You see (and hear!) a lot of “student wagons” this time of year in Denmark, these two weeks around midsummer, full of giddily screaming drunken gymnasium graduates in their graduation hats, blaring loud music and honking merrily.  No one begrudges them the noise or fuss: these are our happy youth, celebrating one of modern life’s great rites of passage.

They’ll be miserable soon enough, let them have their moment.

Here are some random student wagon pictures I scraped off the internet:

Over the course of the day, the trucks visit the homes of every student they’re carrying.  Short visits of 10-20 minutes, little more than bathroom breaks.  The trucks idle in the street, their music often thundering over the neighborhood.  Familiar neighbors may amble by to wish the graduates well.  Total strangers may, as well.  Food and drink will be provided to the kids, who will snarf it down greedily, and parents tend to any graduates who may have had a bit too much to drink.

Eldest’s driver allowed each kid to select the song to be played on arrival at their house: Eldest had chosen America’s national anthem, and everyone on the truck and everyone gathered at our house sang along heartily, myself included—choked with emotion as I was.

We had no sooner concluded belting out “…and the home of the brave” than these giddy, energetic, drunken kids scrambled out of the truck, lining themselves up into two columns in our driveway and holding up their hats to form a series of human arches: last off the truck, Eldest bounded through them, then chugged down a beer bong and began hopping around with glee. Everyone was hopping around with glee. It’s not something one experiences often, that sort of unbridled exuberance at that scale. Not in one’s driveway.

It was half past nine in the evening, but the nordic sun was still shining down on us from a blue sky—but nothing outshone Eldest, who was smiling and laughing and sometimes even weeping with joy every moment of the short visit. There were a lot of hugs, a lot of pictures were taken, and a lot of beers were shotgunned.

Tradition, all of it. It’s how these things go.

It was a scene being replicated all over Denmark that evening, which also happened to be St. John’s Eve, the Danish celebration of midsummer.

The kids eventually staggered back onto the truck, or were dragged back aboard by their classmates, and off they went, the whoops and music receding until they were finally inaudible.

While we stood in the street reflecting on what had just happened, two young women in graduation hats came rushing out of our house: they had missed the truck.

This, too, is something that happens.

A neighbor offered to drive them to the next house on the route and off they all went.

At the last house of the night there’s a party, and although these are loud and boisterous they often end earlier than one might expect because the celebrants have been drinking since about 11 in the morning.  I’m glad we were not that house:  I’ve heard stories about “the day after.”

My own graduation seems very sedate in retrospect.  The entire graduating class of about 300 were seated on the football field in our caps and gowns: the boys in black, the girls in red.  (We were binary back then, and those were our school colors.)  Our families and friends were in the grandstands, clutching their programs.  Speeches were given from a dais erected on the track between the field and the stands: the superintendent of schools, the principle, a local official or two, the class valedictorian, and the class salutarian.  (That was me, so I assume “salutarian” means “class moron.”)  There was a musical performance or two. Finally we were called up onto the dais one by one to receive our diplomas, and once we’d all received them we were congratulated, we threw our caps in the air, and that was it.  We were graduates.

Afterwards a handful of friends came over to my parents’ house, we were allowed to drink a few beers—the drinking age in Massachusetts was 20 and we were all 18, so this was a rare indulgence—and that was that.

Compact.  Efficient.  Relatively sober.

Forty years ago this week, that was.

On Saturday we toured Copenhagen with my sister and her family. We meandered around the cobblestone streets along the canals of Christianshavn and Islands Brygge before finally making our way into Tivoli. We fortified ourselves at one of the beer halls, the younger set did some rides. We rejoined briefly at the great grass lawn in the middle of Tivoli where we were lucky enough to see the queen: I’d never been so close to her in person. None of us had. We got to see the 22:30 illumination of the lake, and the 23:30 fireworks, then piled onto a train and made our way back to the house. None of us was asleep before two in the morning.

Sunday was a quiet day: the biggest event was driving Younger Niece to the airport for her return to New York. Monday afternoon I drove Elder Niece and her parents to the airport: she had a flight back to Boston, they were on their way south to further adventure.

The long week is over. The house is quiet. Reality is reasserting itself.

Sort of.

We’re on vacation now, we four. Eldest will be staying home, attending graduation parties—studentergilde—of varying sizes and styles almost every day for the next two weeks. She’s therefore unable to join her mother, her sister, and myself for our own trip down south.

I don’t know how much I’ll be posting over the next two weeks. Probably more than I have over the last two weeks, but who knows. Who cares. Big life events like those we went through last week are a good reminder of what matters.

And how much I write on Substack or Wordpress does not weight very heavily on those scales.

Enjoy your summer! More importantly, enjoy your family and your friends. Love them and love your time with them.

It’s not unlimited.