a yellow bus

Rowan, then 12, and Sadie, then 2.

I wrote this almost a decade ago ...

How many times had we watched the big yellow bus go by? A bunch, I’d guess. Me, pointing it out, saying to her, “Some day, you’ll probably ride that bus.” Her saying, “When, Daddy, when?” Some day soon. But, “soon” always seems like it’ll be a while.

So, I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it, that day down the road when the little girl goes off in the big orangish-yellow school bus to be with strange children in a strange building, far away from the friends she’s been with since she was 3 and left the confines of home. I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about first grade and all it’ll mean to the girl as she takes on new confidence as a “big girl.” I don’t think about it much at all. Instead, I spend my time doing my work, putting the piece after piece together that makes up a busy life with as many of the trappings of success that I can cobble together. I even stop every once in a while and think to myself that maybe I’ve achieved some of those goals I thought about the day I left the college in Chapel Hill. Not all of the goals, mind you, but just enough to say to myself with some bit of integrity that life’s working out.

But then, “soon” turns into today and the big yellow school bus is coming up the road to pick up the girl on her very first day of first grade. * * * You sit there with your little girl on the tailgate of the F-150 pick-up and watch the bus stop, lights flashing, at the big white house most of a mile away between the fields full of corn that’s beginning to lose its best shade of green. The next stop is here in front of your house. The border collie dances around, putting on a show for the little girl who has contained her excitement, barely, even now that the bus is almost here. No tears at all. Just a grin remarkable for the recently missing front tooth. * * * She kisses us both, first mommy, then daddy. The big yellow bus stops, she gets on, finds a seat one row back and waves to us. You can still see the gap in the smile, even from here next to the tailgate of the truck. Then, she is gone. And, you almost wish that “soon” hadn’t come yet for the little girl and the big yellow bus.

***

Now, the little girl is 14. I watched her, along with Tiffany and Sadie, 4, up on a stage performing Les Miserables this weekend. She seems farther and farther away now, on stage or not.