Back to School

August’s hot days and weeks are behind me now. Our air conditioning system is running less frequently as uncomfortable days from high temperatures are slowly making room for cooler mornings…another blanket on the bed at night…cozy slippers for chilly feet upon waking and crawling out of bed….it’s the third week of a new school year for most of our children–Phew!–I know of some who began their new grades in late August…at any rate, each year when kids return to school I, too, feel a “shift” in my emotions and thoughts…almost as though I will get to experience something new and exciting like a brand new school year!

Our oldest granddaughter has entered second grade. She loves school and takes each day very seriously. Unlike her gramma, she embraces math…like me she is excited to explore learning through science and social studies. Being in the gym or playground is on her top list because she loves to run, climb, and do endless cartwheels as she bounces across any surface with ease. As much as she likes school and doesn’t argue about getting up in the morning, she has admitted to her parents that second grade is “stressterating” (her own combination of stressful and frustrating)…it’s evident that everything she mastered in first grade is now being challenged with building on her early foundations of learning. All of us–parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, are assuring her that she will do well. We believe it and she does, too, now that nighttime prayers include speaking positive affirmations over her sleepy mind before laying her head on the pillow. “You are kind….you are a good learner….”

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When kids head back to school, I am reminded of something my mother once told me. She admitted that for the first few days all three of us kids had left for school, leaving her to an empty house, she felt lonely. I guess the chaos brought on by raising three growing noisy children…preparing endless meals including snacks, playing referee to childhood squabbles with neighbor kids….keeping track of everyone’s schedules left her with emotions of loneliness…perhaps a quiet home was too much too soon and  fed her feelings of missing us kids…now that I’ve had kids of my own…lived through their 12 years of education, I “get it”. What’s odd, though, is that our own children have been out of the house for awhile now…my own September lonely days without them are behind me, and yet, here…now…in the third week of September I have felt the return and effect of kids going back to school….I wonder why…

I truly have no idea why the experience of sending my kids back to school…and now, watching as our granddaughter walks that same path…soon to be followed by her younger brother and  few cousins less her age…evokes emotions that include surviving the heat of July and August to finding ways to occupy my time in the cooler days ushered in by September. Maybe the mere process of recognizing the “shift” is all part of a grand plan to keep me aware of each day’s opportunities for living life and fulfilling purpose…whether it’s waiting to hear a report on how second grade is going….being included in conversations about social studies or how many cartwheels were spun during recess.

Ya, August is behind us. We are living in September. Windows aren’t open as often. School doors have opened, welcoming back our precious babies who are eager to learn. Momma heartstrings are being tugged at as kids leave each morning… noisy goodbyes leave homes  quieter now until the final bell at the end of the day…

The school bus doesn’t stop at our home any more. But it doesn’t mean that I don’t long for those days that are now a thing of the past…what it does mean, though, is that with the gift of four precious grandchildren to love now, while I may not be waving goodbye as the bus pulls away, my hands are now folded in prayer for them every morning,,, that they will be protected, be loved, be kind, embrace learning…and not get too “stressterated”.  And that any melancholy feelings of my own will soon disappear into the calendar of the new school year…