First day of kindergarten!

Later, when I'm back from my weeklong catering job in upstate New York, I'll talk more about the journey Rachel and I took to our new home in Arlington, VA and how we've settled in. But I'm leaving within the hour and I still have packing to do. And I couldn't go without giving a quick update on Rachel's first day in kindergarten.

Let me repeat this: RACHEL'S FIRST DAY IN KINDERGARTEN. For this blog's older readers, kindergarten is now what first grade was for me, so it's a much bigger deal. All the crying (by parents) takes place a year earlier now. So it was with me: I'm not in any of pictures I took because I was weeping the whole time. Seeing Rachel walk to school with her Hello Kitty backpack (almost as big as she is), Hello Kitty lunch bag, skirt from Mammaw (thanks, Mammaw! A thank-you note is on its way), shirt from Grandma and sparkly shoes that Rachel picked out for me to buy in Oregon made me realize, as I have realized a thousand times since giving birth, that I'm now part of the big wave of humanity sending their kids to school for the first time. It's one of many small steps Rachel will take toward independence, and I really shouldn't be sad; this is what we're raising her to do, right? To be independent. Yes. I imagine I'll cry on the first day of her senior year in high school, since it will be the end of her primary/middle/secondary school career. And as Drew reminded me before he caught the train for work, I will be a MESS when we drop her off at college.

The halls of McKinley Elementary were crowded with men in ties and dress shirts (but no suits, thank god, and no Silicon Valley-unself-conscious-khakis-and-polo-shirts-without-ties) and their wives, some dressed up, some not. The men were smiling and resolute, the women were weepy and shooting photos. Some of the kids were crying, most not (including Rachel; she was momentarily shy but then jumped right in to say the Pledge of Allegiance. I didn't know they did that anymore). 

What must Grandma and Grandpa have thought when they took Dad and Uncle Dan to school for the first time, so far away from their torn-up country? Oh, how I wish I'd had the sense to ask them that when they were alive. Were they silently giving thanks that they escaped the Nazis? Were they scared about the new school system, what Dad and Uncle Dan would be learning and if what they would be learning would take the boys away from their parents? In a way, it was that journey out of Belgium that got Drew and I where we are today, dropping off our only child in kindergarten -- new school, new house, new town, new life. Just like Grandma and Grandpa did so long ago.

That thought made me cry even more.