I walked my daughter in to four year old preschool in September 2012. I had no idea what to expect. It felt wrong to drop her off and drive away. It felt wrong to drop her off with strangers when for every single second of her four years she had been supervised only by people who loved her dearly. All I kept thinking was the milestone this was and how ten years from then, I would pick her up from her last day of eighth grade.
That day was today.
I always knew I would mourn the passing of my babies’ childhoods. I think that much is given no matter how much you love who they are and the times you are in. We love them so much at every stage that even overwhelmingly positive changes bring about some grief.
But honestly… what I didn’t know was the amount of gratitude I would feel pulling out of that parking lot today. Not gratitude for today, but gratitude for all the days that came before today.
I dropped her off ten years ago, and she only knew one person at the entire school, and that little girl wasn’t even going to school the same days she was. I picked her up today as a young woman who knew everyone in the building she was leaving.
She was loved. She loved.
I sometimes, for the briefest of moments, will consider the amount of money we are paying to send four kids through Catholic school from preschool through high school. We aren’t wealthy people. Our lives would look so much different if we didn’t have to write out those tuition checks.
Yet when I pulled out of that parking lot today, I knew that every single cent was worth it because every single cent went into making my baby girl who she is today.
She won’t remember her fourth grade night of wonders. She likely won’t remember dressing up like a museum docent to present a report in fifth grade. She won’t remember all of her All Saint’s Day Costumes. She won’t remember the reverence with which she held her little First Reconciliation booklet or the look she gave me walking back from receiving her First Holy Communion.
She may not remember them, but they have become part of her fabric, part of the collective unconscious that will make her what she is destined to become.
I laugh when I think about how I thought I was leaving her with strangers. All of those women and men who taught her have become like family to her. We have heard about them around our dinner table for ten years now. Some of them are teaching her little sisters. Some I am sure will become mentors for years to come.
They were all great teachers. She hasn’t had a single teacher I would have changed in all ten years. But they did so much more than teach her math or science or history. They respected her. They respected her as a student and as a person and as a child of God.
I wanted my children to go to Catholic school because I wanted them to love God. What I didn’t know at the time was how little my own love of God was. These teachers taught me to love without ever needing to say a word to me. They taught me how to love God because they taught my daughters how to love him. And they brought me to him through them. They have left a mark on every single aspect of our lives. They have helped make my family who it is.
The biggest part of me is grieving years already spent, but the second biggest part of me is grieving the friends who she will not see every day. We don’t have kids over often. It just never really seems to happen. But still, these girls who M has been friends with since honestly before the time she can remember have been such a blessing to her.
I don’t make it any secret that I’ve always been weary of bullies. I saw the dangers they could pose, and I wanted to protect my daughters so much from that. The funny thing is that I was so afraid of the downfalls of girl friendships that the benefits just kind of snuck up on me without me even knowing it.
As we pulled out of the parking lot today, M showed me a gift a dear friend gave her. Obviously I’ll keep the details private, but what struck me so much was just how appreciated my girl was and how much she appreciated her friend in return. Friendships like that don’t come easy. They take year in and year out of knowing and caring and laughing. And what a gift it is when you see them for what they are.
As we pulled out today, M kept saying, “I can’t believe it’s done.” So much is said in that sentence. All that was to be, all the experiences, all of the tears and the laughter, all of the rocket math and vocabulary quizzes, all of the secret crushes and best friend promises, all of the tests studied for, poetry read and narratives written, all of what life has been over the past ten years.
It’s finished.
And so I was crying for my baby girl today who is no longer a baby. But more so, I was crying out of gratitude. Some times a place isn’t just a place. It’s not just a building or a job or a school. It’s a history. It’s her history. It’s our history. I couldn’t love my baby girl as much as I do without feeling overwhelming thankfulness for the place that has made her so much of who she is.