Little Monsters

It’s abnormally warm for September and it seems as though summer, being stubborn in her departure, is playing fistacuffs with autumn. I skip down the creaky steps and out onto the sidewalk, headphones jammed into my ears, a certain pep in my step. The sky is the bluest I’ve seen in months, a surprising, yet welcomed, contrast to the grey residue the pandemic stained the earth with in the last 18 months.

The elementary school behind my house has been vacant for two years, something I’ve grown accustomed to, and I feel the anxiety start to rise and clamp down on my chest as I wander upon the unexpected busyness. Cars parked in every possible area as parents scramble for lunch boxes and masks. Dads in button-up shirts and pleated pants walk their daughters with backpacks bigger than their own torsos past the person patrolling the crosswalk. A mom walks between a son and daughter, arms around each shoulder clutching them close to either hip. I imagine tears behind her sunglasses.

The school bell rings and echoes out past the neighborhood and into the bay, informing the world of this new beginning.

The little humans are lined up at the gym door, masked, waiting to enter the building for the first time. A row of blue balloons bobble in the wind over their heads, a lame attempt to make this new beginning fun rather than frightening. Moms and dads lean onto the chain link fence in anticipation. Some are crying, some are laughing, some aren’t even paying attention.

I wait for the masked crossing guard to wave me across the street as a sea of screaming little monsters run past me in the other direction. Just then, as if God told me to, I look to my left and see a mom sitting in the driver’s seat of a tiny white SUV wiping tears from under her eyes. Her eyes are big and brown, empty and glassed over with sadness as she tries to pull herself together for drop-off.

I look away to give her privacy, and suddenly feel the culmination of shared fear and disbelief, loss and grief.

My chest sharpens as I’m reminded of my own loss, a painful recognition of something, someone, I’ll never bore, as another mourns a different, but maybe similar, loss of her own - another year gone by too quickly, her child growing up too fast.

Tears behind my sunglasses start to form as I think about the school lunches I’ll never make, fights about curfews I’ll never have, recitals I’ll never see, homework I’ll never help with, walks to school I’ll never dread, shoulders I’ll never clutch, tears I’ll never shed for the loss of a son or daughter growing up too quickly.

Walking up the steps to an empty home I think, how is it possible to mourn something so deeply that I’m not sure I ever want?

Have you ever mourned something you never had, and also never wanted? If so, please, I encourage you to be brave and leave it in the comments below. Your words are safe here.