As Time Goes By.....and By

“Remember the days in the olde school yard?” Cat Stevens

                As I write this, my son is beginning his last real day of school.  There will be tests…finals, Regents and the like, but today is his last day of school. College will follow, and maybe more. But 12 years of public school in both NYC and Port Washington (with a 1 year interval elsewhere) comes to an end today. I am filled with many thoughts and emotions, as I feel this a rather momentous day.  There are many different markers of when a child becomes an adult; some use age, some may use a manner of religious ceremony. I think for me, this may be it, because now, it’s all on him. Oh, we’ll be there to guide, etc. as always, but everything from here on out is on him, and it is indeed, very different.

                Of all of the feelings today is bringing, I think melancholy has to be at the top of the list. This coming September, for the first time in 16 years, we will not be getting someone ready for the first day of school. We will not have to join the crush at Staples (okay, so there’s one good thing!) for school supplies.  Until such time as the next generation comes along, I will not have to buy crayons, glue sticks, spiral notebooks, marble notebooks, “post its”, highlighters, or index cards…some or all of these things would almost certainly be lost within the 1st month or so…and that was okay, because to me, it was always about more than that. School, and by school I mean (mainly) grammar school…but also high school…has an almost magical power about it.

                I can’t speak for all, but I know that I still get a strange feeling every September, and I haven’t been in school since 1979. It’s not a bad feeling, but it’s there and it’s real. I think over the last decade and a half it was made manifest by my children going to school. I always thought the 1st day of school a great opportunity (though I didn’t often make enough use of that myself) for a new start.  And certain grades of course (milestone grades like 8th in catholic school) make that even more evident. But seeing them with the mix of trepidation, anticipation and whatever else brought it all back here even more so. And it’s also something we can share with them (and we have). Come what may, from PLAN (back in SJA, some may remember) to SRA tests, to Common Core, there are still those things that are unchangeable and we have that to share with them.  And even as an adult…a parent…my 6’6” self would still feel a bit of apprehension speaking to the principal, especially if there was some minor transgression. I have walked through the halls of their schools on parent/teacher day, rigorously following my child’s schedule in abbreviated form, making sure I had a minute to speak to the teacher quickly enough to make sure I got to the next class on time, because I didn’t want to be late “to class”. School still has that pull. So now, there are no more PTA meetings, no more consent forms for teams and trips. No more school pictures. No more projects made from assorted objects lying about the house. No more art work to mark the various holidays…turkeys made from the outline of a hand…Valentines’ Day cards for mom.  School plays and pageants, meeting with teachers and guidance counsellors.  Sitting up helping with homework, and then realising by about 10th grade that I was useless (as far as math went) to help anymore.

                So these memories are now all consigned to the caverns in our minds, to hopefully be revived when their children start the process, and begin the cycle once again. But until then we will cherish those days, days when the leaves changed colours and it all seemed to be so fresh, and we all had a new start. A strange thing that, in a season (autumn) where everything in nature begins to die off, the most important thing to all of us gets a new beginning, and fresh start.

May peace come to us all