My child stood alone at the bus stop sobbing. It’s the first day of school for her. We both hear the diesel engine of the approaching school bus maybe a minute away. It roars and then goes silent as it stops and starts vacuuming up all the neighborhood kids. She takes another look at me as I’m standing just up the hill with my arms folded. I’m working hard at staying resolute.
This is new for me too. I have my own set of fears to conquer. If left to my heart, I’d swoop her up, double belt her in the kiddy seat, and drive her to her first day of school. Then I would sit with her in her classroom until she was secure and happy. Instead, I am the source of her unhappiness. That and the black unknown.
Big crocodile tears stream from her cheeks. She chokes with fear. She looks at me with her big beautiful, sad eyes like I’ve just abandoned her. I stand expressionless as if heartless. I must stay firm. If I were to move a facial muscle to something a bit more sympathetic, she’d be running to me, knowing that I was relenting. She knows me. She looks at me for any subtle change, pleading with her tears and her slouch. Her backpack is about to slip off.
Please daddy. Sniff. Sniff. Please don’t make me do this.
The bus finally roars to a stop. The air-brakes hiss and the door opens like the closing scene from the movie, Forrest Gump. The driver is a no-nonsense middle-aged woman with both arms stretched across the steering wheel. The only prop missing was the big wad of chewing gum. She offers my little sweetheart her sweetest motherly smile, encouraging her to come aboard. Having given up on being saved by her mean, heartless father, my little princess doesn’t look back again. She walks midway down the bus aisle and takes a seat on the other side and looks out the window in the other direction. Like her mother, she’s giving me the equivalent of the ‘silent treatment.’ I walk back up the hill a bit defeated. Yes, she will survive her first day of school, but I failed at making her happy. After all, every princess deserves to be happy.
The very next day was a completely different experience. Once on the bus, she looked at me halfway up the hill and waved. It was a confident wave. She had conquered her fears, and she didn’t need me or anyone else. She began to see value in being independent. She had a school to get too and friends to make. She was happy, and so was I.
My wife and I have four children. They’ve never asked me what I most want for them. But then again, I never asked my parents that question either. I think we go through life believing we know what they want for us. We get handed a value package with a bunch of implied meanings. Talk of school and showing interest in school work and report cards means education is important. Learning to do laundry and cleaning the bedroom implies the value of cleanliness. Attending church suggests a significant interest in a spiritual dimension. I could go on and on. We pass on our values by our actions and by what we talk about. All this assumes we, as parents, stuck around to talk to our children and gave them something worthy to observe. And if we bailed early, then it should be little wonder why children of divorce have such a hard time of things. The value package was either only partially passed on or not at all.
My daughter, now in her 30’s and four children of her own, and I talk about the good ole days. She tells me of her youngest climbing aboard the bus with great trepidation. I imagine her standing on the hill with arms folded. So I decided to ask her what I’ve often asked myself, “What do you wish most for your children.”
It would be easy for her to say the expected. “Oh. I want them to be happy.” But she resists. From her own experience, she knows that being ‘happy’ is temporary at best. An emotion that comes and goes like a spring breeze. She could say how she wants them to be ‘successful.’ But she resists knowing how hard that would be to define. She could say she wants them to get along with each other; to love one another. And she will eventually offer that as one of her wishes. But her children are at the age where their love for one another is often difficult to observe.
My daughter is a smart woman. She knows something about what it takes to become emotionally mature. She now understands that when she took that fateful step up into that school bus, alone, she was taking small steps to becoming autonomous. She made it past the bus driver, past the other kids, some older than she, and onto a bus bench without her daddy or mommy or anyone else she knew. That she alone had it within her self to navigate life independently.
When she arrived at school, and she started making friends quickly, and her teacher liked her, she felt a sense of accomplishment. Her fear turned out to be her strength. She got along well with others. She’d rush home to tell her mother of her new friends and where they lived and what their favorite TV shows were.
But it was what happened two years later that put the biggest smile on my face. It was her younger sisters turn to take the big bus to school for the very first time. My oldest princess gently took my youngest princess by the hand, and together they boarded the bus. Together they sat on a bench, and together they waved at me with big broad, confident smiles. They could count on one another in a real and substantial way that lasts to this day. Does that make me happy? Of course. But what I had that day was much greater than happiness.
We sit in silence as she thinks through my question. “Dad, I think what I want most for my children is what I have. I want them to be independent; to think for themselves. To be good listeners and always be learning. I want them to find satisfaction and meaning in whatever career choice they make. To go to bed tired knowing they gave their very best. I want them to love one another. I want them to take care of each other. To find meaning and value in encouraging each other to be their best.”
Wow. From the first school bus trip to this! It’s hard to describe the pride that I felt.
“I couldn’t have said it better, my dear. I only have two things to add. When you helped your little sis into the school bus, I was on the hill with my arms folded. Welling up inside me was this great sense of joy. A joy that comes from seeing something beautiful that has remained with me to this day. My joy for you started when I held you still wet and slippery from birth. I remember that as if it were yesterday. I was an uncertain father and you a beautiful bundle of potential. I didn’t feel worthy or able. There were bumps and bruises along the way, but with each new step came progress… for both of us. You married and have your own children. Today we sit as two adults in conversation. That brings me great joy!”
“Me too, daddy.”
“Along with joy, my dear, I have one final wish. It’s a wish that requires understanding a concept. It is perhaps a difficult concept, at least from a secular perspective. I wish all my children to accept the gift of ‘grace.’ It’s a spiritual notion that suggests that the Almighty is a God of compassion and forgiveness. That no matter our mistakes, our failings, our stumbles, that He forgives us. And by extension, we are to give ourselves the grace necessary to pick ourselves back up and carry on. Only then we can extend grace to those who may have wronged us. It is the Grace of God that allows us to forgive everyone but especially our brothers and sisters. That is what I want for you- for all my children- to live in harmony and love. That was your grandmother’s wish, and that is my wish.”
