The Night Before Second Grade

All across the county, moms & dads are setting alarm clocks, packing lunches and desperately trying to adhere to their carefully planned bed times and routines. Littles will head to bed tonight; some nervous, some excited, some dreading the first day of school tomorrow. We’re one of the last counties to go back…most of our friends’ kids have been back a week or more now. I’ve watched for days. Photo by photo. Gut punch by gut punch.

Not every kid will go back to school. And even now, this much time later, it still simply blows my mind that mine is one who won’t.

She isn’t “old hat” at her elementary school. She doesn’t know the ins and outs, being a big-time second grader in what should be her third year there. She won’t ever know the cubby with her name on it. She won’t ever know the classmates who were robbed of a really special friend. No excitement over school supplies, backpack selection or that special first day of school outfit. What does a second grade shopping list look like? Would I pack her lunch with carefully planned sandwiches cut into special shapes with encouraging notes (that now she would actually be able to read?) Teachers will never know her clever, beautiful spirit. Friends will never know this brave, tender-hearted girl who changed lives. Other parents will shuffle through car line and bus stops and never know there was a girl who was supposed to be in attendance.

Her name is Kate. And she belongs there, too.

Please don’t misunderstand. I don’t begrudge families their special days. I truly don’t. I don’t blame you for being sad over sweet littles marching off bravely to kindergarten or big littles stiff-upper-lipping it though move-in day at college. I get it. It’s not nothing.

I just wish Kate got these special days, too. I wish I knew what it felt like. I wish I could be sad too, for different reasons. I wish I could miss her for just a day.

I wish I knew my second grader today. Her name is Kate. And she belongs here.