The Last Day Has Arrived

The desks have been emptied. Chalk boards and white boards have been scrubbed clean, the once brightly-decorated walls are bare.

Today, when I walk my daughters to their classrooms for the final time this school year, a sense of emptiness will already fill the air. The halls my girls traipsed down each morning will lose some of their familiarity over the next few months. Teachers who have graced their lives, leaving an indelible footprint on their bright and eager minds, will soon be viewed through the lens of the past as new ones take their place.

The walls that absorbed the echoes of my children’s recitations along with their bursts of laughter will soon await a new group of students. Oh, that I could bottle those sounds, to occasionally release the moments that made this past school year its own adventure, with challenges, disappointments and sweet victories.

Change awaits: a best friend’s desk will be empty in the fall as she moves away, a beloved teacher of thirty years begins enjoying her retirement. Things will never be quite the same – never the same teacher with the same mix of students at the same stage of life. It has been said that life is a series of happy hello’s and sad good bye’s; today we have mostly the sad.

We’ve waited for this day and now it’s finally here. Mentally we’ve already begun our summer break, planning our family vacation and trips to the pool. But today, as awards are handed out in recognition of hard work and stellar achievements, I am grateful for this stage of our lives, for these treasured school days and the lessons of the past nine months – learned by parent and child – that we will all carry with us into the years ahead.

photo courtesy morgue file