Hello hello!
As today is National Sibling Day, I can't begin to express how honored I am to have Michael as my twin brother. I want to go back and write about our graduation from high school in 2014, and how incredible Michael was during the ceremony.
First off, Michael technically did not "graduate" with a diploma. Instead, he got a certificate for his completion of High School, and will not receive his actual diploma until next year after finishing up his transition program at our neighboring high school. However, Michael did get to walk on stage like the rest of the students to pick up his certificate, and I had the honor of walking him up to the stage.
Beforehand we were a little worried that Michael would not want to walk up to the stage, and that he would get irritated from all of the noise, but luckily we had our own way of circumnavigating that issue. As I had mentioned in an earlier post a few months back, the school district had given some of the students with special needs iPads, so that they could communicate in a different manner. Since Michael excels by learning through example, we'd always take videos of how to do things on the iPad, replay them for him, and then he'd easily understand the concept. After filming how we'd walk on stage during the graduation practice, at first Michael wasn't looking forward to walking up to the stage. However, after watching the videos multiple times the night before, Michael did an incredible job, and it was so heartwarming to get to escort him through the ceremony :)
As today is National Sibling Day, I can't begin to express how honored I am to have Michael as my twin brother. I want to go back and write about our graduation from high school in 2014, and how incredible Michael was during the ceremony.
First off, Michael technically did not "graduate" with a diploma. Instead, he got a certificate for his completion of High School, and will not receive his actual diploma until next year after finishing up his transition program at our neighboring high school. However, Michael did get to walk on stage like the rest of the students to pick up his certificate, and I had the honor of walking him up to the stage.
Beforehand we were a little worried that Michael would not want to walk up to the stage, and that he would get irritated from all of the noise, but luckily we had our own way of circumnavigating that issue. As I had mentioned in an earlier post a few months back, the school district had given some of the students with special needs iPads, so that they could communicate in a different manner. Since Michael excels by learning through example, we'd always take videos of how to do things on the iPad, replay them for him, and then he'd easily understand the concept. After filming how we'd walk on stage during the graduation practice, at first Michael wasn't looking forward to walking up to the stage. However, after watching the videos multiple times the night before, Michael did an incredible job, and it was so heartwarming to get to escort him through the ceremony :)