Today’s Going to Be a Great Day

August 1983

The cool air stirred and the long rays of morning sun greeted the three of us as we walked our long driveway. It took everything in me to not start crying. “Today’s going to be a great day!” I said, with too much pep in my voice. I wanted to make sure I told him all he needed to know for this special day. “You’ll meet new people and it’ll be terrific!”

We continued to walk, hand in hand as we always had in the past. He stopped, looked up into my eyes, and with a sober voice, “It is going to be a great day, right, Mommy?”

Little Sis skipped along singing Great day, It’s gonna be a great day … She had no idea the somberness of this moment for me. But how could she? How could she know what it felt like to lose a baby in an Unknown World?

How could she know what it felt like to lose a baby in an Unknown World?

 

The Big Bus

Soon the big bus pulled up and stopped, throwing open its doors. I watched as my son climbed the humungous steps and entered the bowels of the yellow-orange bus that had been sent to take him away. He found a seat by the window and settled in for the ride. The top of his head was all I saw as the bus wheezed, jerked a bit, and then drove away.

I cried all the way home. Little Sis and I filled our morning with a lot of nothing special, passing the time until Big Brother returned. When we saw the big yellow-orange bus turn the corner and stop, we ran out to greet him. We smothered him with hugs and kisses. He walked differently on the way home–a bit taller, his shoulders back straight. He had faced the giant called Kindigar’n and had stories to tell!

I survived the first day of school.

August 1984
Once again, the three of us walked down the long driveway. As the year before, I did my best not to cry. This time, Big Brother held Little Sis’s hand as we strolled along.

“Today’s going to be a great day!” Big Brother told his sister. “I did this last year. You’ll be great.” When the big yellow-orange bus pulled up, Little Sis squared her shoulders … and without looking back … marched up the steps just as Big Brother prepared her to do. She trusted him. They were together and her day would be fine. But what about me? Who would walk back to the house with me?

All morning I paced from one room to another, trying to fill the emptiness with purpose.

At the end of the day, the yellow-orange bus pulled to our stop. Big Brother and Little Sis came bounding down the steps. My arms ached just a bit for the babies who had grown up so quickly.

But I was the victor … I had survived my second first day of school.

August 1994

My baby … Youngest Boy … and I sat on the front steps of our new home and waited for the yellow-orange bus. Youngest Boy’s older siblings were already arguing about snagging the best seats. But Youngest Boy and I stayed apart, preparing one another for what was to come.
“Today’s going to be a great day,” I said softly, hoping my peaceful demeanor would give him confidence.

“Really Mommy, a great day?”

“One of the greatest ever!” I hugged Youngest Boy close.

Too soon the yellow-orange bus stopped in front of the house and my three gifts from God rambled up the steps, with Youngest Boy trailing, needing assistance to climb in. Once again, I wiped tears away as I watched them round the corner and drive out of sight. I sighed, went back into the house, and drank my coffee.

This time I had survived my third and last first day of school.

Today

I drove through the neighborhood this morning for an early run to the grocery store and I found myself stuck behind a school bus. I watched mommies and daddies standing with their young ones at bus stops along my route. I saw them wipe tears away as they did their best to ready their precious babies to meet their own Unknown World. Sitting behind the wheel, I reflected on my own firsts. Then other school years. Pictures on the refrigerator. Teacher-parent meetings. Athletic events. Proms. College events. And finally … graduation.

Then It Hit Me

Then it hit me: Today I am facing the first day in twenty-nine years when I didn’t have a child experiencing some kind of school. Elementary, middle, high school, or college–school days were all behind me now.

Today I am facing the first day in twenty-nine years when I didn’t have a child experiencing some kind of school.

For a fleeting moment, I longed for just one more shopping trip to pick out the perfect backpack, the most awesome outfits, or the most confusing calculator ever.

It doesn’t seem all that long ago that I watched a big yellow-orange beast carry each of my sweet ones into new seasons of their lives. I can see the top of Big Brother’s head through the bus window, the squared shoulders of Little Sis as she marched into her future, and the tenderness of Youngest Boy as he struggled with mastering the bus’s steps.

Time to Square My Own Shoulders

I need to text my three children and let them know that I’m very proud of them. They are on their own course … meeting their Unknown World and surviving.

Just like me.

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens
Ecclesiastics 3:1

Reposted from August 22, 2012. 

 

Want to see how The Ladies mystery series began?

Can a woman on the run find herself again?

Ladies of the Fire brought us to the late 1960s as we met the newly-widowed Lily-Rose Pembrick reeling as she fled Lincoln, Nebraska, with her children. Only taking the cash from the house safe and what she could get her hands on at the family bank, she left the recently-inherited and successful Pembrick Transportation company behind. Exhausted from driving all night, she stopped in Applegate, Ohio, and decided to start a new life on Norwood Street. There, she met Fiona Kasey, an African-American no-nonsense housekeeper/companion to an elderly white woman, and Sugar Bowersox, a Southern spitfire who has lost herself in motherhood.

Together, they enjoyed Lily-Rose’s backyard fire pit, where dreams were spoken and secrets revealed. As they embraced a kinship they never would have sought, Lily-Rose began thinking her past could finally be laid to rest—until someone ended up dead.

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