In her commencement speech to the Barnard class of 2010, Meryl Streep said, “There is only change, and resistance to it and then more change” (Graduation Wisdom). If you think about it, that word “commencement” is so cool because your first thought at such a moment is of graduation or end. For me, Meryl Streep’s thoughts encapsulate the theme of change–at the end of Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book and at the beginning of Bod’s coming life.

The narrator sets the stage in the final chapter “Leavings and Partings” with these words “The world is changing” (295). It’s true. Bod is losing his ability to see the dead, to fade into stone, and to converse with graveyard animals. Change has begun, yet Bod resists it. Though it is time for him to journey to the land of the living, Bod does not want to leave the safe world of the dead. As Liza the witch tells him, “…one of us is too foolish to live, and it is not I” (300).

Finally, Bod must heed the elders’ words. Mother Slaughter presents him with this paradox: “You’re always you, and that don’t change, and you’re always changing, and there’s nothing you can do about it” (298). Bod begins his leavetaking–and there’s definite sadness there. Scarlett will not remember him, and most of the dead folk watch him from the shadows. I was happy that Gaiman gives Bod the opportunity to say goodbye to the two most influential people in his life, his mother and his guardian, Silas. Speaking of Bod’s future as much as his own, Silas confirms the inevitable “People can change” (303).

Life moves on for Bod, for Silas, and for us. Bod’s departure from the cemetery echoes Scarlett’s earlier exit as neither of them looks back–a sort of metaphorical, even melancholy, nod to the future. Bod seeks “new friends to make” which, I hope, opens the possibility of a reunion with Scarlett when he adds “old friends to rediscover” (307).

In his fifteen years so far, Bod has experienced much change. Some he has resisted, some he has embraced. And down the road, there is more change to come. Meryl Streep said it all.