June 8 felt like a normal day for Corbin Raymond.
Nearly a year shy of the anniversary of a car crash that left him severely injured, Raymond still has a ways to go.
But with a break in physical and speech therapy planned for the summer, the Merrimack Valley Middle High School graduate said he was looking forward to a relaxing summer after walking across the stage to graduate with his classmates Saturday afternoon.
“I’ll decide where I am after all of that,” Raymond said, noting he was due for a check-up in August. “Right now I’m just going to play it by ear.”
Over 175 students made the short walk across a stage to graduate during the regional school’s 52nd commencement, which includes the communities of Penacook, Boscawen, Loudon, Webster and Salisbury.
For Raymond, the walk almost didn’t happen. A July 4 car crash last year left him with fractures in his spine, skull and rib cage and multiple broken bones, as well as trauma to the brain and internal bleeding. He endured multiple rounds of surgery and countless hours of therapy before he was able to return to school.
Hundreds of people and students – some who didn’t even know the family – turned out to welcome Raymond back to school last November, and painted hearts saying “Corbin strong” lined Boscawen’s main street.
In addition to having the community’s support, Raymond also carried the support of New England Patriots wide receiver Julian Edelman. The three-time Super Bowl champion sent Raymond a signed hat while he was in the hospital, telling in him a card that “Tough times don’t last, but tough people do.”
Raymond said he took the phrase to heart – and onto his motarboard, along with green ribbons signaling support for those who suffer from traumatic brain injuries.
But seeing that kind of support from the Class of 2019 wasn’t surprising to social studies teacher Janine Casavant.
As the faculty speaker, she said she witness acts of kindness from the students every day, from fixing dresses with safety pins to buying their classmates lunch when their accounts got too low.
“You individually have reminded your peers and the adults around you that being a part of a larger community than yourself and leading it through a lens of kindness can change your own lives and that of others,” she said.
Those big and small moments of triumph and grief tied his class together, said student speaker Fardeen Siddiqui. Indeed, they were to be expected, he said, likening such challenges to the folds created in Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time.
Sometimes they were everyday struggles, Siddiqui said, like getting a bad test grade or going through drama with friends. Sometimes the folds were bigger, like the grief his classmates felt when they lost Alec White, a Loudon student who died by suicide two years ago.
“It’s times like those when we relied on each other as a class and a community,” Siddiqui said. “We shared this grief as a whole.”
Student speaker Christopher Hill said to his class challenges are necessary to figure out who they were. That journey didn’t have to be big, he said.
“Discovering who you want to become doesn’t mean you have to create impossible goals,” he said. “You don’t have to amass a huge fortune or discover a cure for cancer. Just make an effort to impact those around you.”
Doing so would take dedication and tenacity, Hill said.
“Unlike most questions, we can’t go through our journey of self-discovery and look up our goals and become instantly gratified,” he said.
(Caitlin Andrews can be reached at 369-3309, candrews@cmonitor.com or on Twitter at @ActualCAndrews.)