An End, A Beginning

Today is the big day. Oliver begins kindergarten. Dressed in a red polo, a yellow zip-up tie, tan shorts, and bright blue shoes he clung close to me when we first arrived at the playground for drop off. As it filled with other students, Oliver asked if he could go play.

Yes, I said.

And he ran off, waving at everyone and smiling. I caught my breath as the last five years slid before my eyes. He seemed so small and impossible when I first held him in my arms. I could barely imagine a time when he would be running and swinging and jumping.

I recalled the first day preschool, but it didn’t seem as monumental as today.

Today he begins his steps that will lead him across a stage and into his own future. He will be taught lessons by other people. He will form friendships that have the potential to stick around for decades to come.

While Oliver’s early childhood is at an official end, this is not a time to mourn. It is time to celebrate a job well-done by all his caregivers. Grandparents, parents, friends, and preschool teachers surrounded him with love and building his confidence. Ollie is ready for today because of all the joyful guidance we have provided for him.

This is helpful to remember when I feel a knot form in my throat.

I stood with the other parents behind the playground fence after I dropped Oliver off with his teacher, straining to keep my eyes on him as other kids and parents passed between my gaze. The first tears formed.

I remembered all the good-byes I have been a part of at airports over the years. How people going through security keep looking back for the smiles and waves of loved ones. In college, before we were married, I dropped Kristin off in Detroit to board a plane taking her across the ocean for a semester abroad. I remember standing and straining to see her as she wound her way through red rope mazes. She, nervous and excited to travel alone Internationally for the first time, kept looking back for me.

Oliver didn’t look back. He stood near his teacher, smiling.

I wept when I returned to our minivan . . . thankful for everyone in Oliver’s life and the opportunity to help this amazing person develop into whomever he wants to be.

This Blessed Moment

Time gets all weird on you when you age. The past seems so recent, the present moves by too swiftly, and the future holds a chilling conclusion. As a child I remembered how ANCIENT something was if it was only a few years old, or how one month felt like a year, and a year was a thousand lifetimes.

Our five-year-old son, Oliver, has begun playing with the idea of time. He tries to imagine what he played with and how he talked when he was three. He speaks as if it was decades ago, “way back when I was three, or even earlier way way back when I was a baby.” He has no idea how to guess the age of someone older than ten. I was sixty-something the first time he guessed. He now knows the correct age. And repeats it often. Too often.

The phrase, “now is all we have,” didn’t make sense to me when I was younger. I felt infinite and immortal. “Now” meant forever. My feelings were huge. So was my ego.

As my body aches and male pattern baldness switches on, I am much more diminished. Thank God.

The here and now is painfully real to me. It makes me notice things about my surroundings. And it helps me give thanks. Even if it’s to no one or thing in particular. I say thanks.

Thank you for giving me consciousness to be aware of this moment. Thank you for blooming tomatoes. Thank you for love. Thank you for Taika Waititi. Thank you for making me a silly sack of emotions.

I give thanks that I live at a time when I can publish these silly thoughts with the push of a button; and, perhaps a stranger will read something true in my words. Even though it sounds absurd and illogical, I say thanks.

Because, if not now, when?