First Days of School

In thirty minutes, Jaelyn will get on a bus and go to her first day of first grade. I feel as nervous as I did in ninth grade.








When mom and dad took me to college, I remember the feeling of happy disorientation, of dread and hope all braided together...that blue and brown station wagon disappearing from the chapel parking lot. They went back to Michigan and left me in Ohio.




I used to do doughnuts in icy fast food parking lots with my high school friends in that station wagon. But there went that station wagon and my parents and a great deal of my identity.

Every morning before we left for grade school and high school, my sleepy mother would pull all of her children to her and offer a dramatic prayer to God for our safety and safe return. She hugged us fiercely and kissed us each.

My dad's telling of that journey home from college is that mom cried. Sobbed. All the way back through Ohio and Indiana and Michigan. Eight hours because the speed limit hadn't gone up yet.

And now its just five minutes til she boards the bus. Will I always feel this lost when she disappears?



The bus missed our house. I almost got a picture of it disappearing without Jaelyn. We all piled into Minnie the minivan and zipped up the street.

Lynn wanted to make sure that the school knew that the bus had, as we told Jaelyn, "gotten lost."

"Unh-uh." said Jaelyn, "You are not going in with me." Lynn agreed to just walk to the door. I was so relieved to hear Jaelyn WANT to find autonomy. It just feels too early. Too young.



Addison didn't feel great about his sister's disappearance either. This is him on the way home from dropping off Jaelyn. He's counting down the days (18) til his school starts as he eats an Eggo waffle across the counter from me.