The First Day of School - 2023

Yesterday was the first day of school in the district where my wife teaches. Tuesday night, there was the usual night-before-school-starts flurry of activity: finishing lesson plans, loading up her books and laptop, laying out her outfit for the day, getting the shoes chosen, making sure lunch was ready to go, and triple-checking her double-checking of the alarm clock. When the lights went out, she was as ready as ready could be to start the day at 0530 when that triple-checked, double-checked alarm would go off, alerting her to what she had already known: it's go-time. When it went off this morning, I was up as well. I loaded her lunch kit with leftovers (last night's chicken enchilladas and rice), soda, and cookies. I filled up her water bottle, then told her that her hair looked great, her blouse was perfect, and the shoes matched just right. With a hug and a kiss, and a "good luck; see you tonight," she was out the door, ready to take on sophomores and seniors and try to help them tolerate the English language enough to satisfy the State of Texas.

First-Day Flowers for my Sweetie

After she left, Reese and I went outside. I had my cup of coffee; she had her bone. We sat on the porch and watched parents drop their kids off at the elementary school next door. I could hear parents calling out to their kids; kids calling out to their parents; teachers laughing, cajoling, soothing, encouraging, supporting moms, dads, grannies and grampies, and kiddos: it'll be a good day. Car doors slammed, motors spooled up, and as a cloud of dust settled, another new day began in this early stage of the 2023-2024 academic year.

For us, it is the first year since 2001 that we don't have a child going to public school. Yes, our middle kiddo is still in college, but that's not the same as elementary school, junior high, and high school. She's independent, more-or-less, and much less reliant on us. We aren't buying crayons and scissors, stocking up on notebooks and filler paper, checking out Chromebooks and iPads under threat of hundred-dollar fines for damages, and making sure we have enough after-school snacks to feed a battalion. I won't miss filling out the same forms over and over and over for transportation, food service, administration, and so on. I won't have to determine whether he will need a parking pass, ride the bus, or ride with a friend. I won't have to coordinate after-school activities like band practice, football games, and dating with the family calendar, only to realize I have to be three places at the same time. And I won't be handing out $20 bills like kleenex for gas, band uniform cleaning, senior T-shirt, after school snacks, and snacks before, during and after the game.

This year, it's the same...but it's different. And, last night's first-night review was surprisingly staid: it was a good day. No long stories about the stupid stuff that other kids do, the dumb stuff my own kid did, the lousy assignments, the difficult homework, and frustration of not understanding the application for the "real world," and the irritation that we just don't understand. Dinner was leftovers, eaten on-time, not having to wait for band practice to finish. There was no funky, teen-boy smell when he came in, no pouting over first-night homework, and this morning, no grousing about having to get up early to be to school on-time(ish).

It's a new normal. I'm not sure I like it, yet. Parts of it, yes; but there are parts I really miss. I kind of feel like Stephen Crane's Traveler:

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, “Is it good, friend?”
“It is bitter—bitter,” he answered;

“But I like it
“Because it is bitter,
“And because it is my heart.”

 

Like it or not, the year is off and running. We'll see how it goes. In the meantime, I pray for the parents who fought the fight this morning, the kids who aren't ready to leave momma's side, the bus drivers who pick the willing and unwilling educational participants each day, the food service folks who make sure there are hot meals for kids who might not have anything else to eat until the same time tomorrow, the custodians who clean up the same mess for the um-teenth time, the teachers who, when that first bell rings, take a deep breath and tell themselves, "You can do this," and administrators who wonder, "How the heck am I going to do this?" May the Lord grant them all grace, strength, courage, open hearts and minds, and compassion.