Have a good day at school

"Have a good day at school" is a phrase I have repeated each day to my children since around 1985. In the past year it is something I have done almost fanatically, never missing a day. Sometimes I would get in the car, realize I had forgot, and headed back into the house. I have three school days left to say this to my youngest daughter. A week from now she will be out of high school and getting ready for her high school graduation ceremony.

Her reply is often a simple, "Thanks". It's probably evolved over the years. At one point it may have been, "I'm going to have a great day daddy, cause we're going to the zoo and having a picnic and riding the bus! Mommy's coming with us!" But there is something in that "thanks" that is uniquely hers, a way of saying it that is distinctive. Each morning send-off has been preparation for bigger ones to come. This week, which once seemed so far off, is now here. Soon it will be August and college.

"Have a good day at school" has been as much a prayer as anything. A mutual wish by parent and child that the day would bring good things and that evil things would be kept at bay. I am sure there were times when she dreaded the day ahead and thought, "if my dad only knew the kind of day awaits me". But there were also days of victory that belong just to her. This prayer has been answered many times over. I hope that all of my children look back on their time at home and in school as a very special, almost magical time, when all their needs were met and almost all their battles were won.

This journey started with Rachel at David O. Dodd Elementary in Little Rock and continued with Rob through Wren Hollow Elementary, Hanna Woods Elementary, Parkway Southwest Middle, Parkway South Middle, and Parkway South High in St. Louis, and on to Oak Point Intermediate, Central Middle and Eden Prairie High School in Minnesota. Three cities, three decades, several schools, numerous teachers and classmates.

Although it is not easy to see this time pass, it would be even worse to have things remain as they are. Like her older brother and sister, she is ready. Not quite ready for her own home, but ready to leave this one. And ready to spend four very special years become more and more like the type of person God would have her to be.