First Day of School Once Again

Another year rolls around and with it the first day of school. It marks the end of long, lazy summer days lying by the pool. The end of suitcases still full of beach sand littered through the house, half unpacked from summer fun. The end of looking out the window at my daughter lying on her stomach, her feet in the air, finishing another book for her summer reading project.

Even though it also means the beginning of football games and dances, group homework, endless phone calls from friends, and long Friday mornings for me in Cope’s concessions locker gabbing with the other moms. It means the headlong rush for the excitement of the holidays, Halloween costumes, Thanksgiving feasts, and Christmas shopping. But, yet, it still means the end of another summer and another year older for those three little people that used to always be close by my side.

Although this year is different than ones past, it still has so much of the same. The kids are older now and they don’t even share the first day of school anymore. My oldest heads off to Ruston days later than the younger two. My younger son jumps in his truck and heads eagerly back to friends and football games. And my daughter enters Cope’s big open doors with a smile on her face looking forward to friends and fun.

I don’t have that knot in my chest anymore as I dropped my precious little people off to the care of strangers. As I turned my first borne into Ms. Moody’s capable hands, I felt I had neglected thousands of things a mother should have done. I should have worked less hours and played more. I should have watched more than the 5000 hours I already had of Nickelodeon with little bodies tucked under my arms, and read more than the 7000 stories that I had while the clocked ticked later and my eyelids grew heavier.

We should have gone to Chuck E Cheese more often and I should have joined them in the pool more times. I should have baked more cupcakes with them helping and should have played with GI Joe in many more battles. And now as Ms Moody took his hand and turned away while he told her "I like to draw," I knew I should have colored more pictures and glued more glitter. The first day of school was always a day of feeling I just hadn’t been quite the mother I knew I should have been.

But as the first day of school approached once again, and I was sitting in church hearing the parable of the farmer with weeds in his garden, I realized that maybe it was those very weeds that made life so sweet. If the farmer pulled up the weeds, the plants wouldn’t grow as strong. And if the weeds didn’t threaten, than the plants wouldn’t appear so beautiful.

That if it weren’t for the first day of school taking my children away, that I might never worry about those extra few moments to go outside and push a swing for awhile. If it weren’t for leering strangers, that I would never bother to walk with her down the street while having a chubby little hand point out every fallen leaf, every green grasshopper, and stop to pet every wandering cat along the way. If it weren’t for the fear of "what if" would I have spent endless hours leaning over the rail of a crib to stroke the soft, round curve of a sleeping infant cheek and listen for the soft whisper of breathing before finally closing the door and going to sleep?

But as I watched one more time as her bouncy, blonde ponytail was swinging its way inside Cope’s big metal doors, I still had that empty feeling inside that I should have watched one more afternoon show by her side. I should have taken her for one more pedicure while we sat side by side and had our feet boiled and rubbed. I should have turned off my computer and taken her to lunch one more time before she grew another year away from me.

But I guess it’s like the farmer with his weeds. Even though we were told by one of the greatest teachers of all how important they were to his acres of crops, every mother’s heart aches for that perfectly beautiful garden.