The first day of school

This morning as I was driving from the machine shop we use back to the ‘store’, it is a small manufacturing plant but for some reason I think of it as the store, I realized that today was the first day of school here.
Oh, there have been murmurings, the nieces and nephews have been restless, there are new backpacks floating around and the nights here have had a touch of fall to them.
Sure it is still 90 or so in the heat of the day and we may yet have some triple digit weather in store for us, around here we may have mild weather into October, but once the sun sets and the air starts to cool one can almost smell Fall coming.
But, having reached ‘a certain age’ the one that falls between ones own children being through with school and prior to their children beginning school, I really didn’t know today was the first day of school until I rounded the corner and saw that stream of little ones, bedecked in new backpacks holding the hands of Mothers and Grandmothers and even some lucky Fathers and Grandfathers I was taken by surprise, both by the sight of them and by the pang of nostalgia that gripped me.
I remember cool mornings seeing them off, the looks of anticipation on their faces with a new adventure ahead of them.
I remember the feelings inside of me, as each one of them got old enough for that trip, would they remember all of the things we taught them at home? Would they be good and smart? Would they make friends? Would they be happy and learn? Hoping that they could not see in my face the trepidation, the concern on this most exciting of their days.
I remember feeling a brief void and not understanding for many years that it was a foreshadowing of life in its proper order, for the first day of school is in a way the outward symbol of the first day of the long voyage of life, the first step toward their own lives.
It is in the proper order of things that our children leave for school and then leave for new homes and if we are truly blessed leave for husbands and wives of their own so that their own children may have a first day of school.The morning is beautiful; the children are on their way to school, all is right in God’s world.