First Day of School

First day of School November 2013

Walking to school backpack loaded and ready to go!

Renee our awesome social worker

 

WOW!  Mr. Blue Eyes went to a little over one hour of school today.  He will be doing half days the rest of the week.  When we arrived at school a large crowd of kids gathered around him.  He was overwhelmed with the crowd he is not much for being in the spotlight.  He finally was nudged by the social worker to go play in the school yard.  He lept like a gazelle into the yard trying to escape all the attention.   I was also overwhelmed by the attention, but not in the same way.  What a  great moment to witness these amazing kids being kind to our son.  He is returning to school after winning his battle with cancer.
He got to have our social worker from City of Hope be there with him to talk to his class.  Her name is Renee and she is  loving and sweet.  She brought his class little coloring books that they read a story of a kiddo with cancer.  The class mates were inquisitive, asking a lot of questions and were so kind to Mr. Blue Eyes.  He also got to talk about the poster we had made together of his journey with cancer. It had a lot of pictures on it all ones that he picked.  I was so proud of him for being brave, talking and sharing his experiences.

My perspective today was that I was so happy to see him going back to school and reentering the world.  I feel so so lucky and blessed that we have arrived at this place.  The other element of this day and week is that I have protected him from the world, loving him making sure he is coping and processing all of the change around him.  This has been more than a full time job (I am not complaining I would do it again)  but today it changed I had to let him go.  It was worse than sending him off to kindergarten. I seriously felt like such a sap, but letting go of a cute bald cancer free 9 year old is hard.  Especially for this mom. Though I am happy to see this happening,  I will miss our days together I will miss that I cannot protect him from the world of germs and those who are none empathetic to him.  It was a huge reality of our journey when I saw our beautiful boy standing in the play yard at school today with his little bald head amongst those with hair.  There are moments when I see him as if to look at him for the first time with no hair, reminding me of the road traveled over this long summer.  I chock back a few good tears and remind myself that he did it.  He kicked cancer! He will only look different from the outside a little bit longer but on the inside he wears many badges of courage and hardship.  I wear my badges of this journey with a more tender outlook on life and reminders of Gods infinite grace and mercy.  We really have to cherish every moment they only happen once. So today I cherish letting go.....