It is that time of my life when I am learning yet another
lesson in letting go. I wonder how my little one has grown up so soon! It feels
just like yesterday when he had taken his first baby steps. He had faltered and
fallen and stood up with determination again. I had beamed with pride and
fussed over him at his effort! He had treated me to umpteen such moments, and
had given me ample opportunity to marvel at his little efforts; smiling,
rolling over, crawling, walking, teething, blabbering, incoherent baby talk and
many more. All the while he had been hinting how he was quietly growing up, but
none of these prepared me for his next major step. Going To School!
From the day we completed his admission formalities (which
was 6 months in ago, yes, 6 months! Haven’t admission procedures become
ridiculous? ) I have been fretting and complaining that his age is not quite
right, he is too young to go to school and maybe we should have waited one year
more. But the school authorities and hubby dearest had managed to convince me
how the kid’s age was ideal and how he would be too old for Pre-KG next year.
Since then I have been religiously coaching my son about
every aspect of school, the fun he will have there, the friends he will make,
the things he will learn, the new things we will buy for him and so on and so
forth! My little one has never left me for a minute and I was very worried
whether he would leave me and go to school. Hubby dearest has looked on with
amusement at my non- stop chatter about his schooling and has more than once
remarked that he wondered if I was preparing the child or myself for the
separation! Maybe he was partly or even wholly right! I was perhaps preparing
myself for the separation. Because as much as it was true that he had never
left me for a minute, it was true the other way round too.
As we went through every step of the preparation, buying of
new uniforms, shoes, bag, books, etc, my heart grew restless with worrying
continually over him. And as for the man of the hour, my little hero, he would
nod his head and say “No!” when anyone asked him if he would go to school.
Fears multiplied manifold, I could not sleep the whole week before school
opened for pre-KG!
My dad recounted how defiant I had been going to school initially,
actually for 5 whole months and had kicked the life out of the ayah with my
shiny black shoes, when my dad passed me on to her at the school gates! Brace
yourself, he warned me.
The D-day finally arrived and I thought my little one looked
rather cute in his new school uniform and shoes. He was all smiles posing for
the camera and we tried to capture his first steps in school. But the minute we
handed him over to his teacher he was screaming his lungs out trying to break
free. My heart went out to the little child, who was stretching his little arms
out and calling out to me. I could have cried myself, had hubby dearest not
taken me away from the place. We were told to collect him back in an hour’s
time and to me that hour seemed like eternity!
I had been continually worrying how he would be faring and
hubby dearest got sick of my incessant chatter.
‘For God’s sake, calm down, your child is not the first one
to go to school and we have not left him in the jungle with a bunch of lions,
so stop worrying, he will be fine’, he said, his voice soaked in sarcasm.
But a mother’s heart does not understand that, does it? And
it continues to worry, about the well-being of her child, knowing at all times, that she cannot hold her child
with herself forever. Neither in her womb nor at home. He will eventually break
free from her. And she will have to let
go.
Image: courtesy google
Image: courtesy google
