My heart was pounding.

Every eye in that gymnasium was tracking his progress down the aisle, and I could feel the weight of six hundred stares, and I wanted to disappear, and at the same time I could not take my eyes off my son, who was walking toward me as though there were no one else in the room, as though the laughter did not exist, as though he had crossed that stage and come down those steps for one purpose only, which, I would understand in a moment, he had.

When he reached my row, he stopped, directly in front of my seat.

And his eyes, I saw, were already shining with tears he had not let anyone on that stage see.