My son started the first grade yesterday. He also started a new school; his first public school. He was deliriously excited to go. Mommy, on the other hand, was not so much excited as scared out of her wits. I tried, I really did, to not let him see my stress. To smile at him whenever we discussed the new school, the new kids and the general largeness and differences of his previous Christian education. I must have done a truly fantastic job of convincing him that this was going to be the best day of his life. Because he was ready. He wanted to start last week. Last month. As soon as he could.
And then the day comes. It’s morning of the first day of school. I have a plan, of course. My friend would come over and play with the younger kids so that I could take Nick by myself. Walk him to his door. Shake the teacher’s hand and watch him walk into his first day at his new school like a scene from a movie. He’d turn just as the door begins to shut and he’d give me that smile. That perfect, “I’m going to be fine mom!”, smile.
But plans never really turn out that way, do they. I’ve never had a plan turn out just like I wished it to. I don’t know what compels me to still make them.
My friend can’t make it. Ok, no big deal. I’ll just get his lunch packed, breakfast done, clothes on, what else is there? This is a piece of cake. Oh, no! I’ve forgotten about the two other kids. Delirious in my loss of another well laid plan to ruin, I holler the younger ones into clothes. Into shoes. The smallest can’t find shoes. Well, that doesn’t matter now because we won’t be getting out of the car anymore anyway. We’ll just drive through the Parent Drop-Off like every other seasoned parent. We leave the house: 4 people, 1 backpack, 1 lunch and 6 shoes. We arrive in what I think is a timely manner and wow! Look! The drop-off isn’t even busy. What luck I’m having. But, no. The gate is locked. There’s no one in sight. No one with a blue shirt ready to help a lost mother on her first day of public school. What to do now. Ok, I’ll park. I saw someone at the front of the school.
“Excuse me, where do I drop off my son? There’s no one in the drop-off section?”
“Oh, ma’am,” (I hate being called ma’am), “The first bell already rang. You have to take him into the office.”
Great. Ok, well I’m already parked. “Everybody out! We’re late.” But the 40 pound youngest still isn’t wearing shoes. “C’mere, I’ll carry you honey.”
And off we go. Across the grass in a mad rush with (at least to my credit) a lot of other confused looking parents and children wearing new backpacks. We head through the office. We’re 12 feet from the hallway where I know his classroom is, so I attempt to head straight through to drop him off myself. (Still thinking my plan just might work!) But no. The office lady hollers at me that parents are not allowed beyond that line. That line that is 6 feet from his classroom. Ok then, we wait. We wait in line for approximately 10-15 minutes while I watch several other families roam right by this self-same office lady who somehow takes no notice. Why can’t I be that invisible? It’s probably the 40 lb. child in my arms and the sweat running down my brow. We get to the front of the line and the woman takes our names. She asks another employee (or possibly parent helper) to escort my son to class.
I turn the opposite direction and head out of the office and out of the way as fast as I can. But then I remember. And I turn around. And all I can see is his little head bobbing down the hallway with his tiny little backpack, going the opposite direction. And he never turns around for me. Because he’s fine. Because he’s confident. Because he’s starting a new chapter in his life.
And in a way so am I. Without him. And I bawled all the way home.
