Monday was “Kindergarten Bus Ride Night” at SVES for Gabriel. I snapped this photo in the van while driving to the Elementary School. I don’t think he was nervous, but in the photo he shows different to me. Sure, maybe he was thinking about it – I would’ve been too if I were him. We talked on the way about what to expect. We hadn’t picked up our mail from our neighbor since being away last week so we didn’t know which teacher he’d been assigned to. He was hoping for Mrs. Kummerer, just from what he remembered of her during orientation. I just hoped whoever she was that she would love him like I do and find him just as fascinating and irresistible. Turns out he got Mrs. Degler, who happened to be Morgans’ Kindergarten teacher! Once we found someplace to sit in the cafeteria, he was called for the special bus ride – to familiarize the kids with the bus rules and to let them see what it felt like to ride. I watched him leave while the principal spoke in the background. I was already becoming sad at the thought of Gabriel on his own. The parents were led to the appropriate classrooms to see where their kids would be and what the parents and children could expect while the kids were on the bus. I found his name tag on a desk and sat in the chair he would be sitting in. Even though it was overwhelming, I hope that there will be many more bittersweet moments like this when I am so excited for him to be going to the next stage in his life, but so sad for me to be watching him go. I’m looking around and seeing all of the awesome things that he will be doing and learning about. There in the back corner of the room I am standing, eight years ago watching Morgan with his classmates, and opening a new chapter in my life. This was the first classroom and teacher of my first child. And in this moment I realize that it’s kind of like coming full circle. Eight years later, I am bringing my youngest child to the same teacher, in the same class room, but closing a chapter of my life. Wow.
All I can do now is pray…pray that God will continue to bless me with the life I have, the one that lets me stay at home and not be tied down to a job where I cannot be available. A life where I can continue to be home for them if they get sick, or if they need a day off. A life that lets me be here each day to be waiting at the bus stop so that I can catch Christian and Gabriel when they run to me after getting off the bus, and I get to hug them and dream that they can feel my hug knowing how much I have missed them and how I couldn’t wait to see them at the end of the school day. A life where I can then thank God for their safe arrival to me so I can enjoy them for the rest of that day, and then I can pray again that night for their safekeeping to the next evening. The life I have now, the life that my Lord has undeservedly yet graciously blessed me with, and the life I wouldn’t trade for anything at all.
