Kindergarten
Tomorrow would have been Isla's first day of kindergarten.
Just writing those words feel like a jab to the heart. It's supposed to be a joyful rite of passage, filled with excitement for the things 3-year-old Lorenzo dreams about - riding the school bus, filling his backpack with crisp new crayons, making friends, learning to read, running around at recess. Instead, today it feels like a another theft from the universe. Another milestone that Isla misses out on, another reminder of where our sweet girl would be if she had made it.
I have vivid memories of my kindergarten class in Tacoma, Washington. I remember exactly how the classroom was set up, how I walked to school through a trail leading off from our backyard, how I got accidently got poked in the cheek with a sharpened pencil by a classmate and failed my very first eye exam in the nurse's office. I learned to ride a bike that fall on the flat, grassy lawn next to my elementary school. I got my first teacher's note admonishing me for swearing (apparently, I told someone to "kiss my butt", which I attribute to the influence of my then 10 and 13-year old sister and brother). I remember a few snatches of things before kindergarten, but the rhythm of a regular school day and the feeling of "arriving" at school, the place where all the big kids get to go cemented this time at being 5 years old in my memory.
This might have been when Isla's lifelong memories really started. Maybe when she finally started to feel included in her peer group and experience some semblance of a normal life. Who knows what her life would have been like. The hardest thing to cope with are the constant reminders of the passage of time, the reality of watching other children growing up and experiencing all the firsts of a normal life. Of collecting all the cute art Lorenzo creates in preschool and feeling simultaneously blessed and saddened that while his portfolio grows, hers remains stagnant and meager with a collection of baby pictures and condolence cards.
The fact that I wanted an image of a little girl going to school for this blog post and had to find a stock photo online infuriates me. The mixture of feeling powerless, angry, and devastated is rising up again, like a wave. By this time I know to just ride it out, to try and honor her today in some small way, and to try and send some ripple of acknowledgement into the universe so she hears it. Love you sweetie.
