For My Daughter, Carenna
On the occasion of her graduation — and everything it took to get here
I want everyone here to take a good look at this woman. Really look at her.
Because what you're seeing tonight is not just someone who graduated. What you're seeing is someone who refused to give up — even when she was exhausted, even when it hurt, even when she didn't believe in herself. And she did it.
Summa Cum Laude. A Bachelor of Science in International Affairs from the Elliott School. A double major in Geography. A minor in Geographic Information Systems. From The George Washington University.
That is extraordinary. Not ordinary-extraordinary. Extraordinary extraordinary.
Carenna, I want to say something tonight that I don't think I've said clearly enough. I am so deeply, wildly, unshakably proud of you — not because of the GPA, not because of the honors, not because of Penn — though all of that is astonishing. I am proud of who you are, right now, in this room.· · ·
You lost your dad when you were eight years old. Eight. That kind of loss doesn't just hurt — it reshapes you. It asks questions of you that no child should ever have to answer. And I watched you carry it. Every year, through every phase, I watched you carry it — and still reach, still grow, still dare.
Before GWU, before D.C., before any of it — at seventeen years old, you made a choice that most adults wouldn't make. You decided you wanted something different. A bigger world. A harder path. And so you went to the Netherlands to finish high school.
Alone. At seventeen. During a global pandemic.
While most of the world was retreating — closing borders, canceling plans, contracting — you were navigating a new country, a new school, a new culture, in the middle of one of the most disorienting crises of our lifetime. No roadmap. No guarantee. Just your own nerve and your own will.
"While the world was contracting, she was expanding — by choice, with courage, on her own terms."
And then Belfast — where you met friends who I know will be your people for life, no matter where any of you land in the world.
And then Paris. To live your dream — and to fulfill your dad's dream. You didn't just read about the world in textbooks. You lived in it. You learned what it means to be a stranger somewhere, to find your footing in an unfamiliar place, to make a home out of nothing but your own presence and openness.
Those experiences are in you — in the way you see people, in the way you move through complexity without flinching, in the empathy that makes you exceptional at everything you touch. That is not a résumé item. That is a formation.
And here is what I've come to understand about you, watching all of this unfold: you have never been someone who turns away from hard things. Not from loss. Not from dislocation. Not from grief. You move toward the difficult — and then you find a way to turn it into something that serves other people.
Which is exactly what you did with the deepest wound you carry.
You became Director of Camp Kesem — a program that holds space for children whose parents have been impacted by cancer. You took the most painful thing in your own life and used it to build a shelter for kids walking the same road you walked — while earning a great GPA. That is not something they teach at the Elliott school. That is character. That is the truest form of leadership I know.
Now. I'm your mother. So I get to say this.
You are also, at times, your own worst enemy. You doubt yourself with a ferocity that does not match the evidence. You look at everything you've built — the Netherlands, Belfast, Paris, GWU, Kesem, Penn, all of it — and somehow still ask: but am I enough?
So let me answer that. Loudly. Clearly. Once and for all.
You are more than enough. You have always been enough. The problem was never your worth — it was that you started measuring yourself against the wrong things. Against people who couldn't see you. Against approval you were never going to get from people who weren't capable of giving it.
Against a world that sometimes forgets to celebrate the quiet, unglamorous work of just getting through something hard.
You don't need anyone to validate what you've done. Certainly not some insecure, emotionally immature boy who couldn't recognize what was standing right in front of him. Their inability to rise to your level is not a reflection of your value. It is a reflection of their limitations. Do not spend one more minute of this beautiful life shrinking yourself to fit someone else's smallness.
You have lived in four countries, visited over 23? You navigated a pandemic on foreign soil. You ran a nonprofit for grieving children, fought your own emotional battles and still graduated summa cum laude.
You are the woman who does the hard thing. Own it. Finally own it.
In August, you go to Penn. (To Lolo you have yet another Ivy League granddaughter) where you’ll earn your Master's in Urban Spatial Analytics. You'll study how cities work — how people move through space, how communities are shaped, how data can make the world more equitable, more livable, more just. And yes — you will learn to program in Python. *lol*
That is the work your father would have burst with pride over. That is the work you were made for.
Kierkegaard said: "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." You couldn't have known, at eight years old, or at seventeen in the Netherlands, or in the middle of a hard semester at GWU, what all of it was building toward. But standing here tonight, looking back — it has shape. It has meaning. Every single piece of it led here.
You are strong. Not someday. Now. You have already proven it — in the Netherlands at seventeen, in Belfast, in Paris, in every exam and paper you pushed through when you wanted to quit, in every time you showed up for those Kesem kids when you were running on empty. That is not weakness wearing a brave face. That is actual, hard-won, bone-deep strength.
"The struggle was not a detour from the achievement. The struggle was the achievement."
The hard years were not a mistake. They were the making of you. Every late night, every panic attack, every moment you thought I can't do this — and then did it anyway — that was your real education. The degree is just the paperwork.
Carenna, I want you to step into this next season differently. Let me say this, I need you to step up and into the adult shoes—Not because the hard moments are over — they won't be. But because you are no longer the girl who didn't know she could survive them. You know now. You have the receipts — stamped in four countries, on two continents, across four years at one of the finest universities in the world.
So be the woman you've already become. Ask for what you need. Set the boundaries you deserve. Choose people who can hold your greatness without flinching. Let yourself be celebrated — truly, fully, without immediately explaining it away.
And when the voice comes — the one that says I just can't do this — remember this room. These people. This night. Remember the seventeen-year-old who got on a plane to the Netherlands. You have already done the hardest things. Philadelphia is next. And you are so ready.
Carenna, I love you more than I have words for.
So Raise your glass, everyone —
To a woman who earned every single one of her honors.
To her resilience, her courage, her brilliant and restless mind.
To the Netherlands, to Belfast, to Paris, to D.C., to Camp Kesem.
To the next extraordinary chapter., you are ready.
To my daughter. Carenna. 🥂 congratulations
