Last Sunday, sitting with my family, I watched my baby sister walk across the stage to receive her high school diploma.

I’ve never before felt such a surge of pride for both my littlest sister, my parents and other sisters as on that afternoon.

Jessica is my parents fifth and final daughter to graduate from Sycamore High School and go on to college. She will be attending the University of Cincinnati’s prestigious College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning in the fall.

She is quirky, vivacious, creative and has an incredible amount of determination (or just plain stubbornness) that drives her.

They are tools that she has crafted in part herself, but that have also developed in part through the careful nurturance of my parents and — although she wouldn’t admit it — from my other sisters and me.

As I sat in the balcony of the Cintas Center at Xavier University watching the ceremony, I couldn’t help the tears that welled up in my eyes as I watched my beautiful sister giggle and laugh with her friends.

I prayed she will always remember the invincible and euphoric feeling she must have had. I remember that feeling well, thinking all the greatest things life has to offer are just lying out there in the future for me.

I shook my head as the beach balls soared in the air and cheered when the teachers missed scooping them up to take them away. The students deserved to have their fun and to be jubilant and celebrate their achievements.

For what lies ahead of them — adulthood — isn’t easy. And they won’t always be recognized for their accomplishments ... or have the chance to celebrate.

I thought, too, about the naïve and oblivious teenager I was on my graduation day and how silly the argument I had had with Jessica earlier in the morning really was.

I was grateful, just like my mother told me I would be, that I had decided to stay in town to watch her march instead of storming off and heading home in anger.

Watching her and thinking about the words we had spoken to each other that morning, I realized that I had never once thought about how hard my family worked to get me to that day and how my parents must have felt watching me reach that milestone.

I felt an indescribable sense of both pride and relief that the day was here and she was now an adult, but I also felt anxiety and fear for what lies ahead of her.

And then it hit me. Graduation Day is the day parents and even over-protective, worry wart big sisters need to step aside and let the graduate spread their own wings and either fly away or begin to fall on their faces.

I think she will soar.

Each and every one of my sisters (and me, too) did because of the unyielding dedication and love of my parents and each other. If it wasn’t for the encouragement, and the sometimes tough love we all were surrounded by each and every day, we may never have gotten to the beginning of The Rest of Our Lives.

When Jessica finally flipped that green and yellow tassel and then left the stadium, I thought that even though she might still be mad at me today, maybe, just maybe some day she will recognize that my anger came from my desire to see her succeed and become the woman I know she will be.

CARRIE STAMBAUGH can be reached at cstambaugh@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2653.