I’m rereading my latest book, published in January 2022 as I prepare to begin its sequel. The story, you’ll remember, is of fostering and adopting children, and I just read about halfway through the book about the mom, whose name is Cher, who is waiting for the school day to end. The house has been too quiet. She is distracted as she thinks about the last three weeks of summer, preparing for school to start, with five kids gathering supplies, meeting teachers, doing the doctor and dentist visits, and finally, the first day of school has come, and the house is indeed too quiet.
I’m thinking of all the moms out there who are experiencing their first Saturday with the kids at home after their first few days of school. They are assessing the kids’ body language, wondering how each one is adjusting, hoping they have finished their first week assignments when teachers are assessing where they are academically and how much they have lost during the two-month hiatus, or this year, how much COVID has stolen from all of their academic progress. While the teachers wonder about the huge number of kids they met this week with all their personality variants and their emotional needs, the moms who know their kids best, wonder how school’s beginning has already altered the children they relinquished for some twenty-four precious hours of life to others’ care.
Did they make friends? Did they eat their lunches? Were they confident or did they cower at what the teacher was asking them to do? Are there new kids in their classes who need new friends? Were there enough books and desks for everyone? Are some of them still wearing masks? Do they worry that they might have to go back to all the restrictions the pandemic caused.
It is not coincidental that I thought about the first few days of school. I’ve written about it the last two blogs. I miss those days from a teacher perspective. But as a grandma I miss knowing how Kaley and Emily fared. All I get from their mom and dad is that the few humps and difficulties were solved and “it’s all good.” This grandma wants specifics. When I see and hug them tomorrow at church, I’ll assess their unusual quietness or their smiling enthusiasm, and then I’ll know I can trust Monday’s beginnings or pray even harder that the days pass well for both students, teachers, and especially for the moms who may still find the silence deafening and much too long.
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