Pardon Me For Asking, But Where Have The Years Gone?

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First Day Of Kindergarten at PS 58

Photo credit: Max Kelly

This Monday will mark an important day in my daughter's life. After four years, she will be donning a cap and gown and graduating from college. I will be sitting in the audience, clutching a handkerchief and occasionally dabbing at my eyes.
(Oh, who am I kidding. I will most probably weep.)

It is a huge milestone for her. Though I hope that she will continue expanding her mind and explore the world around her forever, I understand her happiness at finally being able to step out of the classroom and into the rest of her life.

But, pardon me for asking, how did we get to this momentous day? Yes, I do remember distinctly, every first day of school, every science project and essay, every failed test and every perfect grade as she moved from PS 58, her elementary
school, through middle and high school and finally to college.
I can recall her first attempt at Twinkle, Twinkle on the violin in the school orchestra, the excitement of her first field trip, the first dance and the first betrayal of a best friend.

I spend the better part of her Kindergarten year picking her up for lunch because she cried every time the teacher brought the class into the cafeteria. The other kids were "too loud" my little shy daughter told me, grabbing my hand and pulling me home. Dutifully, she would go back after eating a sandwich and kissing her baby brother good bye.

From this shy little girl, she blossomed into a self-assured, independent young lady.
She leads her own life now, which of course is as it should be. She is a tremendous writer and I wish I had her skill with words. And though she now lives in Manhattan, you can not take the Brooklyn out of her. Some of her best writing pieces are about growing up in Carroll Gardens.

She is an adult now, in every sense of the word and that makes me very happy and proud. And yet...I miss the days when she needed me and I had a bigger part in her life. That is why I smiled when she called the other day. " Finally," she blurted into the telephone, "I have been trying to talk to you for days. I keep getting Papa or Max, but I wanted to talk to you."
What music to my ears. My little girl needed to talk to me, and no one else would do.

Yes, the rest of the world sees her as the beautiful accomplished young woman she is now, but part of me still sees her as that little girl with a pink ribbon in her hair on the first day of Kindergarten.

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