This has been the longest summer I’ve ever had. Not the good kind of long summer. A bittersweet one. I should be getting ready to send off four little and not so little girls to school tomorrow. Instead, I’m sending three. I’ve never missed her first day of school. I’ve spent a summer I should have thoroughly enjoyed driving four hours round trip every other weekend just to see and hold her for not even two hours some visits.
I know she’s getting help, and she’s doing really well, but she should be here. Excited to start her last year in elementary school. Excited to see the patient staff who saw past her illness and saw the little girl struggling to remain here instead of a shell. Excited to come home and tell me all about her first day.
But instead, she’ll have to do that over the phone at 7:30 tomorrow night.
If you’re sending your kids to school tomorrow, enjoy it. Despite the fact I still have three going tomorrow, nothing quite feels so painful and heartbreaking as knowing you’re not doing the first day of school with your child, especially a milestone one.
I’m glad I’ll be home and mostly by myself tomorrow. I don’t think I could leave my house and go to work.
Elizabeth and her daughter, Eva