Letter of the day: An ode to a daughter graduating from South High

Next week our daughter graduates, becomes a grad. She made the grade, got into a good college. I remember grade school, the program where she dressed as a chicken. I look through albums, see gradations in her hair, eyes. The way she grew to carry, rather than to be carried. The child in her retreating, the woman running forward, an opposition that pulls at the corners of her smile. I am so happy to lose her, really, to have a child to lose. The gradient before her: an upward slope, but gradual. She has strong thighs. MARY JEAN PORT, MINNEAPOLIS