Today is the first day of school in New York.  Carefully timed to miss the president’s message to students by a whisker, young men and women will march forward, some in anticipation and other with trepidation.  Unlike the father in the television commercial, this is not the most wonderful time of the year for me.

I have only one child left at home, with one having moved on to greener pastures.  When the first one shuffled out of the house, I realized that she went from crawling to texting before my computer booted up.  The alacrity with which a child leaves you is unlike anything else.  So much time, love and effort is dedicated to their welfare, and then they’re gone.

Many of my dear friends send their children off to renown boarding schools for their high school education.  These are feeder schools to the Ivies, where other well-to-do parents send their children to mingle amongst their own, learn how to be both ladies/gentlemen and survivors.  I kept my son home for high school.  I couldn’t bare to lose him a day earlier than necessary.

My daughter went to boarding school for three years, and while I cannot express the depth of my appreciation to her school for the exceptional job they did, I regret every day without her.  There are too few under the best of circumstances, and the loss was brutally difficult.  But it was necessary under the circumstances, and I suffered her absence for her sake.  It was the right choice.

When my friends children come home for the occasional weekend visit, holidays or vacation, they are almost unrecognizable.  They grow taller, more manly or womanly, more . . . gown up.  I wonder to myself how my friends feel about missing each day that their children changed, grew hair above their lip or curves that replaced straight lines.  I never say it aloud, as it’s none of my business, and I certainly don’t want to make the pain any worse. 

It’s comical as parts change, but not quite the whole.  Seeing the near-man mustache deepened with the remnants of chocolate milk, I see the manchild.  Some days, I believe that he’s grown overnight, as he stumbles downstairs growling at me for waking him up, or challenging the adequacy of his tooth-brushing.  But I cherish the change that comes each day, even if it’s hardly as apparent as when they are invisible for months at a time.

There will only be a few more first days of school for me.  Then it’s over.  I will miss them terribly.