We limped most painfully along to the end of the school year.
On the Sunday before Memorial day ( two weeks before the official dismissal of school) I told the kids that if they didn’t want to go to school I wouldn’t make them.
No one took me up on that though.
I just never felt like I got my feet underneath me after the move. Our stuff may be settled in the new home, but life is still very unsettled.
I didn’t even get a picture of the kids on the last day of school.
We read scriptures and I shooed them out the door one last time. “No, I won’t drive you, you can walk.” And off they went. And when they came home, a picture didn’t even cross my mind till long after they had scattered to play.
So that evening I made Olivia let me take a few pictures of her (she was very annoyed). If nothing else, I needed a picture of Sunshine –
for it was . . .
her last day of Elementary school.
And during those last two weeks when I could hardly catch my breath with the annoyance of trying to finish out the year, I would stop myself, and try to remember . . . this is the end of the era.
The end of my baby Olivia.
For next year she will brave the malodorous halls of middle school, and her life will change forever. And my life will change too. And the tragedy of it really does rip my heart out. Why are these years going so fast?