The First Day of School

And here we are...the last weekend before school starts. I was, unabashedly and unashamedly, a nerd. I was always beside myself with excitement for that first day of school. Later on, when I worked at a school, I was, again, always excited about that first day. A little later, I was excited about my children's first days at school. Kindergarten was awesome! I was NOT one of those moms who just couldn't let go. I knew all the fun and excitement and knowledge that awaited my kids at school. However....

Last night, I sat in the gym at Trinity High School, beside my little boy, at New Trojan Night. Yes, I know he's 6' 4.5". But he's still my little boy.

When I went to the "New Trojan Mom" luncheon a few weeks ago, one mother looked up at Harley and said, "Is this the sophomore from Harwood they're all talking about?" I said, "...um...I don't know...he went to Euless...?" She looked up at him again, then back at me and said, "How many sophomores this big can there BE?" She has a point.

But I sat there last night, in that gym that was so familiar, mostly unchanged from 30 years ago, except for more championship flags lining the walls, and yet, it was so foreign to me. And I wondered where the time went.

We recently ran across some pictures of Harley, when he was only a week or so old; when he was tiny, he would sleep with his little arms thrown up above his head, and his head thrown back as far as it would go. Now he sleeps, angled and sprawled across his queen size bed; if he doesn't sleep at an angle, his feet hang off.

Among those pictures is another one; Harley is about four, and we're at some family gathering at Mom and Dad's. Harley is sitting in my niece's lap, shirtless, having his face and hands washed. He had obviously played very hard with his older cousins, because he looks exhausted. Happy, but exhausted. He looks pale, and small, and oh, so vulnerable. And last night he stood beside me, towering over me, tall and tan and handsome, looking perfectly at home with the great big football players we ran into in the hallway outside the gym. Nodding his head in that way cool guys do when someone calls their name in the hallway...Har-LEY. My baby boy.

I know that some of you reading this are looking at your own little boy or girl. The Nolans, the Coles, the Lucases, the Karsyns and Brinleys and Courtneys. And I will tell you something: look hard. Look hard and long, and get that image fixed in your heart, because before you know it, that image will change. That little boy will be walking through the hallways of your old alma mater, or that little red-haired girl (or girls) will be going off to Florida College. That little dark-haired, blue-eyed boy will be a young man at Texas A&M.

And suddenly, the first day of school is so hard.