Dear Boy One and Girl One,
Today is your last day of Elementary school. After 11:15am, you will officially be sixth grade students. Middle schoolers. Big kids.
Your school, thankfully, does not have a graduation ceremony. Not that it wouldn't be fun to see you all dressed up and receiving your "Bachelor of Fifth grade arts" or anything, but your mom, in case it's not become apparent to you after eleven years, is a bit of a sap. And my make-up looks really pretty today so I don't want to cry it off.
I know, I know. I can hear it now.
It's just fifth grade.
It is. But it's not.
It's also sleepless nights, before you were born, wondering if you would even live. It's sleepless nights during the first, few fragile days of your life, wondering if you would live. It's hearing a doctor say, "We don't know if she's blind" and "He'll never be normal". It's realizing that the one who the doctor wasn't sure about being blind has 20/20 vision and the one the doctor wasn't sure would ever be normal most certainly is NOT normal, but is abnormal in the most strange and beautiful ways.
It's seeing you struggle to keep up. It's seeing you fall.
Seeing you get back up. Again and again and again.
It's the knowledge that the day you were born, I almost lost my life. That I came really darn close to never knowing any of this at all. To you being raised by someone else, somewhere else. Never holding your tiny hands, never watching you run, never running alongside you.
It's how, somehow, you've become my cheerleaders. How all those words I said to you over the years, you repeat back to me; You can do it mom! I'll run beside you mom! You can go another mile! You sold your book! I'm so proud!
I don't dwell on the past. What happened, happened. I can't change it. I can't make you as strong as tall as the other boys in your class. I can't make you less shy as the other girls. I can't change who you are. I can't rewrite history.
And I suppose I really wouldn't want to. Not just because you are twelve pounds of awesome in a ten pound sack, but also because I would never change the experience of watching you grow up. The work was hard, but the rewards are great. The days were long, but the years have been short. So short.
Elementary school is nothing, I guess. To a lot of moms and dads it's no big shake.
To me? After seeing what you started as? It's a miracle.
I am so, so proud of you.
And when you graduate high school in a few years? They'll probably have to carry me out on a stretcher. Good Lord.
Love you and love you and love you,
Your mom
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13 comments:
I know exactly how you feel. My twin daughters started middle school last year and I cried at their 5th grade celebration. My oldest daughter starts high school in the fall. Its very emotional for us Moms. I am so lucky/glad my youngest is only in 1st grade so I have a while before its his turn.
You are a great Mom and they are lucky to have you.
I feel the same about TC. I look at how far he has come yet how far he still has to go.
The places they're going, those wonderful places, they're going because you've gone along with them. They are so lucky to have you, and you are so lucky to have them. It's a beautiful thing.
Aww you made me cry at work!
You made me cry.
Enjoy every minute, it is to precious and goes too fast!
I'm so glad other people feel that way, too. When my kids graduated from high school, I cried like we were at a funeral. I know people thought I was crazy, but I am so sentimental about all of the precious milestones!!!
Oh! I loved this!
What a wonderful post :) Please tell me you'll save this for BC & GC...
I loved this post. I cried when my girl graduated Kindergarten, and i know I will cry on that first day in September when I put her on a bus for the first time and send her off to 2nd grade.
Well said, darlin'. Amazingly well said. :)
"The days were long, but the years have been short. So short."
Oh.So.True.
*sob*
You just made my mascara run. Beautiful. :)
The time goes so fast...My 23 year old is ready to propse and my 21 year old is engaged. BUT my baby, my baby they said I would never have, is 16 and about ready to drive and be a junior in high school. I want to cry, because the years have gone so fast for the one surprise I never expected. He is so handsome and the only one who looks like me and at the same time it kills me that the time has gone so fast. What happened to the days when I called him my Angel-Bunny and he would come running or the days when he would hide just so I could find him and wrap him in a bear hug. They've gone so much quicker than I ever expected. He's the one I'm having a difficult time letting go of...it must be something about being a miracle.
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