On this Sunday Eve as so many of us prepare to send our "babies" Back to School I share the following food for thought courtesy of my friend Jane.

Last year just before my first born son Chase went off to college I struggled with finding the words to express all the feelings I had about our "last summer" together and the emotional rollercoaster ride I was on as a result of his eminent College "send off". I honestly had no idea how I would cope after he was gone.

Jane listened to me for a bit nodding knowingly as she had been there two times before me and she assured me that everything was indeed going to be ok. She shared her thoughts that as hard as it was to send her first born son Jack off to USC the son who returned to her that following summer was better for having gone, as was she.

"You will be fine" she said "and more importantly so will he" and when we left each other she gave me a hug and a CD that she said helped her put her feelings at that time into perspective.
I remember driving home from our lunch together listening to the CD thinking that I was not quite sure I would ever be "fine" again as she suggested but I knew that I had found a kindred spirit in Donna the Mother I met that day courtesy of Jane & NPR.

If you too would like to meet her and her son Charlie click on the following link: NPR "Back to School" Radio Program  .

Now... one year later as I prepare to send my oldest off for year two at Mizzou and my baby boy off to his last year in high school I can honestly say she was right.

I know that doesn't make it any easier for all of those I spoke with this week where I played the part of the seasoned survivor to so many of my friends and relatives who shared a tear or two as they prepared themselves for college, high school and even kindergarten "send offs".

I dedicate this "Back to School" Blog Spot to all of you as well as my assurance that eventually you too will be "just fine" and so will your "babies".

The First Day Of School

I

My child and I hold hands on the way to school,

And when I leave him at the first-grade door

He cries a little but is brave; he does

Let go. My selfish tears remind me how

I cried before that door a life ago.

I may have had a hard time letting go.

Each fall the children must endure together

What every child also endures alone:

Learning the alphabet, the integers,

Three dozen bits and pieces of a stuff

So arbitrary, so peremptory,

That worlds invisible and visible

Bow down before it, as in Joseph's dream

The sheaves bowed down and then the stars bowed down

Before the dreaming of a little boy.

That dream got him such hatred of his brothers

As cost the greater part of life to mend,

And yet great kindness came of it in the end.


II

A school is where they grind the grain of thought,

And grind the children who must mind the thought.

It may be those two grindings are but one,

As from the alphabet come Shakespeare's Plays,

As from the integers comes Euler's Law,

As from the whole, inseparably, the lives,

The shrunken lives that have not been set free

By law or by poetic phantasy.

But may they be. My child has disappeared

Behind the schoolroom door. And should I live

To see his coming forth, a life away,

I know my hope, but do not know its form

Nor hope to know it. May the fathers he finds

Among his teachers have a care of him

More than his father could. How that will look

I do not know, I do not need to know.

Even our tears belong to ritual.

But may great kindness come of it in the end.

                                 - by Howard Nemerov