Prom!

The events coordinator for Woodland Park Zoo finds me at 8:15 PM. I have a zebra-striped table runner tied around my waist, and a long stemmed bouquet of green and pink flowers in my hands.

"Are you still ready to let everyone in at 8:30?" she asks me.

I examine the room. It's a food court by day, but with black linens and square vases and tropical flowers and the whirling lights from the DJ's table by the window, you'd never know it now. We're waiting in a safari, elegant and cool in the evening of this hot May day, for the guests to arrive. After almost six months of planning, it's prom night at IHS, and we're ready.

"Yes. Definitely let them in," I reply, nodding.

Prom is the first of four events that I have helped to plan as the co-advisor of the Class of 2009, and by far the most complicated. This business is far out of my comfort zone. Never a party planner, most of my birthdays slide by without much ado, as I shrink away from the detail-ridden process of inviting, arranging, reserving, splitting checks, and other complications. Prom 2009 has been full of complication: We've spent hours on the phone with caterers and DJs and photographers or in meetings with the Prom Committee, voting on backgrounds and themes and decorating schemes. Though the students have been deeply invested in this project, helping at every step of the way, we're the ones in charge right now, as the students are still posing stereotypically and ordering hip urban food in stately gowns and tuxes. With the room ready, we retreat for a moment to change into pretty dresses and cardigans, then head outside to wait.

The gravel walk from the zoo gate to the pavilion is lined with votive candles, flickering in miniature fishbowls. Half a dozen teachers wait along the shadowy path, sipping coffee and chatting about the end of the year, of past proms and future plans. The first students arrive and we applaud, cheering for the ironed and proper look of rumpled boys in tuxes and the girl who wears a backwards baseball cap every day, tonight donning a cocktail dress and pristine black curls. As the sun sets and the candles glow, we squint through the dusk at each new face, disguised but so familiar. A camera dangles from my wrist, but I've never been excited about interrupting moments to take pictures. And this, the true promenade on the way to prom, is truly a moment.

It's a moment for them, certainly, but also for us, the teachers who welcome our guests, our students. This is the first class that I have seen all the way through, from the first day of freshman year until now, just two weeks before I stand on the stage and call them up to receive diplomas. In a way, we've been waiting for this forever--but it only feels like a few minutes. I've had time to learn names and faces, a few stories and some quirky personalities, and now they are on their way out. Just a moment, these four years.

It is a night of effusive celebrations. Perhaps the lights are a little too bright, and the process of naming the king and queen is awkward and slightly silly, but no one minds. Mostly they are happy to be together; I get the impression that the details are just a colorful background for friendships at their summit. With a swaying last slow song--which I swear was the same slow song that ended my own prom, seven years ago--it's over and they pour out, laughing and talking and shouting "2009" into the cool night.

"All that planning!" sighs my co-advisor.

"All that money!" I laugh in reply.

"No drama!" congratulates the principal. "No drunk kids."

Only a few more steps and we'll be parting ways for good. Whether or not my co-advisor and I, both facing the loss of our jobs, make it back to IHS, these seniors won't be back. When I started all of this, I thought that four years was the marathon of education, long compared sprinting of camp ministry and even the middle distance terms of student leadership in college. Four years is ages to teach someone, I thought back then. It's true: four years is long enough to know someone well, to recognize handwriting and read expressions as clearly as words. But it's just a moment, really, from the Day One to this day, one of the last.

And we're carrying bouquets back to the car, reflecting on the night. Did they like it? Will they remember it? I know I will.