Hey there Shankar here. Last week our friends of the Public Radio Program 1A produced a discussion about rights of passage.

As part of that episode they asked me to deliver an on-air commencement address to graduates finishing their studies this year.

We thought we'd bring you those remarks and offer our warm congratulations to all students, parents and caregivers who are marking this moment.

Greetings to the Class of 2020 to the faculty, parents, grandparents and friends joining us today.

Congratulations. It's a great honor to be with you in this most extraordinary of moments for this most unusual of commencement ceremonies.

Now, extraordinary and unusual may not be the first words that come to mind. Perhaps the words you would choose are more colourful.

Go ahead. Shout those words out loud. It's okay to feel grief that your commencement isn't how you imagined it.

You've worked hard to get to this moment. You deserve to be wearing your cap and gown. To walk across the stage, shake hands with your deans and professors and collect your diploma.

Your family is deserved to bear witness to this moment. To know that all their years of hard work and sacrifice were worth it.

Giving up this right of passage is very hard. And it comes at a time when many others are going through much worse.

Some of you might be feeling guilty about being sad. You might be thinking of all the lives that have been lost to the COVID-19 pandemic to the millions of people out of work.

And you might think, I really shouldn't be sad about losing out on a graduation ceremony.

It's good that you're paying attention to all those out there who are hurting, but that shouldn't mean your pain doesn't count.

Suffering isn't a zero-sum game. Your pain doesn't go away because someone else's pain is greater.

Your sadness about missing out on graduation ceremonies is very likely coupled with anxieties. Will you be able to find a job? If you find one, will it make you happy?

Are you ever going to pay off your student loans?

As you think about these big, difficult questions, I'd like to tell you a story that shows why moments like this, moments of chaos and disruption, allow us to discover things about ourselves.

The story I'd like to share is of a young woman in Maya Shankar. When Maya was a girl, her mother gave her a violin. She was captivated by the instrument and she began playing constantly.

Eventually, she was accepted to Juilliard, the renowned music school in New York City. She became a student of the great violinist, Itzak Perlman. She was well on her way to becoming a professional musician.

Everything was going exactly to plan. And then one day as she was practicing, she always stretched a finger and felt a pop. She had injured a tendon.

Months passed. Her hand never healed properly and eventually doctors told her she had to give up the violin.

The grief that Maya felt was enormous. Her plan for her life, her very identity, had been wrapped around music. She didn't know what to do next.

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