On a warm and windswept commencement morning in Atchison, Kansas, Adrian and Clara Markham welcome listeners to a special Daybreak broadcast from Chesterton Radio as Benedictine College celebrates the Class of 2026.
As church bells ring across campus and graduates gather beneath gathering summer skies, the conversation turns toward endings that are not truly endings at all.
The hosts reflect on the Gospel of John 16:23b–28, today’s Chesterton Radio Morning Prayer, the strange joy and melancholy of commencement weekend, and the enduring mystery of memory, friendship, and vocation.
At the heart of the episode is a long, reflective discussion of the final chapter of The House at Pooh Corner — “In Which Christopher Robin and Pooh Come to an Enchanted Place, and We Leave Them There.” Adrian and Clara explore why A.A. Milne’s farewell to childhood continues to move adults so deeply, and why Fr. Robert Griffin’s beloved Notre Dame commencement tradition of reading the chapter aloud became almost sacred to generations of students preparing to leave home.
The program closes with a meditation on Billy Joel’s “I’ve Loved These Days,” and on the quiet realization that some places never fully leave us — old campuses, old friendships, old stories, and the enchanted corners of youth where, somehow, a little boy and his Bear are always still playing.
Broadcast from Chesterton Radio in Atchison, Kansas.
