Today, I washed, dressed and dropped off Lyd for her final day as a Kindergartner. With the exception of my visiting Sister-In-Law expediting, it was not an abnormal morning, it was the everyday chaos, remind Lyd to keep eating her breakfast, braid her hair, make sure her backpack is packed and ready. Before I knew it, I was dropping Lydia off at her Primary School for the final time. It began sinking in right about then. Every day my little girl becomes a little less little. Before that daydream was able to take hold I snapped back. “Lydia!” I called out, “I Love you!”
“Love you too!” she piped back. She grasped her best friend’s hand and together they walked toward the doors, never looking back.
Someday her reply will be, “Daddy!” She’ll look over her shoulders and with a hissing whisper reply, “I Love you too.”
This past year has been a bit tough on me. For the first time ever I have had to loosen up my grip of her and watch her flutter away from me. For the past year I watched her build a community that does not necessarily involve me. This is her world, not mine, not Annie’s. I am happy, I am proud, and a little stung. It’s an emotional sting, nothing of this sting is based on logic. I know it needs to happen. All I can really do about this is what all of us parents are doing, we’re growing up together as well, forming our own watchful community surrounding these kids. Lydie becomes more independent every day, yet she can still look so tiny to me, looking up with those earnest bright eyes and raised eyebrows, still seeking a cuddle, some time with her ear pressed against my “magic chest”, she makes me truly miss being six years old, back when my questions outnumbered the answers.
Before I pulled out of the parking lot, I looked over my shoulder one more time just as Lyd and her friend, still holding hands entered their school for the last time. This was one heck of a year for her. She had a teacher who managed to tap into Lyd’s mind on contact, a teacher that kids would literally stop what they’re doing to give her a running hug. With great encouragement, Lydia learned how to read, she went all the way across the monkey bars, she met the boy she plans on marrying. She’s best buddies with a little girl she was fighting with at the beginning of the year, and she has narrowed down the list of what she wants to be when she grows up to ten or twelve vocations.
Be them all sweetie. You are six years old. Be them all. Everything is possible. The entire world is spread out before you. Why walk when you can run? Why run when you can skip? Be a sculptor, a musician, a zookeeper. You haven’t clipped your wings yet like us stupid adults, fly Hun. Just please, don’t fly too fast or too far and please fly back to me when you’re done, please fly back, I’m not ready to watch you fly away.