Last Day as A Seattle Schools Parent
You honestly think, that first day of kindergarten with your oldest child, that you'll never see the end. Those 13 years stretch far, far out in front of you. There's school and friends and sports and activites and PTA and family and it just seems like a hazy daze of life. And that's just for one child.
Then one day (actually one night), your youngest child puts on a gown and a mortar cap and sits with his classmates and walks across the stage and they hand him a diploma and they tell you he's all done. What?!? Where was I when this time passed?
Well, it does. And then you get charged with creating a slide show for a graduation party for him and his friends. You sort through photos and see ones you forgot and ones you love to look at and see those chubby baby legs and then the hilarious middle school haircuts (it's always middle school) and the first signs of stubble. You smile while your eyes well up.
You remember teachers and principals and how it is you remember kids' names but not moms' names. Most of all you remember the fellowship you received from working with other parents at your children's schools. All those wonderful men but mostly women who put in the time to make things better. To make school days happy days.
You look at class group photos and look at those bright, shining faces and wish, truly wish, the best for each and every child.
You watch as your son and his friends eat you out of house and home. You wonder why it is they all want to be at your house and then you remember you have Tivo, cable, the World Cup is on and you made nachos.
So many times this year I thought, "A year from now my house will be just be me and my husband." So quiet and so lonely. So if it's loud and noisy now, who cares?
But this is what you work for. So that your child has a good basic education and makes his way to college. We raise them to set them free someday. That's the way of the world.
It just all went by so fast, that's all.
Good luck Nick and all the graduates of the class of 2010.
Then one day (actually one night), your youngest child puts on a gown and a mortar cap and sits with his classmates and walks across the stage and they hand him a diploma and they tell you he's all done. What?!? Where was I when this time passed?
Well, it does. And then you get charged with creating a slide show for a graduation party for him and his friends. You sort through photos and see ones you forgot and ones you love to look at and see those chubby baby legs and then the hilarious middle school haircuts (it's always middle school) and the first signs of stubble. You smile while your eyes well up.
You remember teachers and principals and how it is you remember kids' names but not moms' names. Most of all you remember the fellowship you received from working with other parents at your children's schools. All those wonderful men but mostly women who put in the time to make things better. To make school days happy days.
You look at class group photos and look at those bright, shining faces and wish, truly wish, the best for each and every child.
You watch as your son and his friends eat you out of house and home. You wonder why it is they all want to be at your house and then you remember you have Tivo, cable, the World Cup is on and you made nachos.
So many times this year I thought, "A year from now my house will be just be me and my husband." So quiet and so lonely. So if it's loud and noisy now, who cares?
But this is what you work for. So that your child has a good basic education and makes his way to college. We raise them to set them free someday. That's the way of the world.
It just all went by so fast, that's all.
Good luck Nick and all the graduates of the class of 2010.
Comments
Best to your son and the entire class of 2010!
I am feeling this way today about Kindergarten -- I'm happy to see them growing older yet also sad that their Kindergarten year will be completed on Tuesday.
I can't imagine.
I hope I will be able to weather the coming years with your grace.
Congratulations to you, your family, and Nick.
Here's to a bright future to all those shiny eyed children.
What happened to those chubby, darling, giggling little things? They get all gangly, and surly, and incommunicative. And we love them all the same. Here's to another year, and another, and another, the planet revolving and orbiting around the sun, and life moving inexorably onward. I'm happy to be on this revolving planet with all of you.
Congratulations to Nick!