I arrived at the school pick up a little late yesterday, I know completely unheard of I’m such an organized person, Hum well, In my dreams. My point being anyway that this is not the first time it has happened so I was a little surprised to find myself confronted with a tear drenched splotchy red faced totally inconsolable mess of a girl when I got there. I immediately start blaming myself because, you know, nothing could possibly go wrong in the world without me being the direct cause of it (really need to work on issues of self importance).
Whilst trying not to appear alarmed (all good Australians know that being alert is as far as we go, people) I quicken my pace to get to my distraught Lani and find out what horrific event initiated this emotional outburst. Did I forget to sign a note? Did I pack her lunch? What about library, is it library day, did I forget to send her book?? Why is she crying!! how could I be late when she’s so upset! I’m such a bad mother!
As I get closer I realize Eli is trying to comfort her, well he’s next to her anyway, climbing up on the fence she’s leaning on and jumping on it like a Monkey with one to many Red Bull’s in its stomach. He then madly clicks his fingers in the air and jumps, in no particular direction, mainly up, but he lands with a spectacular splat at her feet and exclaims.
" Lani, look, Lani did you see?"
So I know he’s trying to connect with her.
I wrap my arms around her sobbing body and ask.
" Honey what happened, are you Ok??"
"Year.. sob… 10….sob…sob.. left"
" What???" I say trying to find some hidden significance in these words. It’s true the school only goes up to year ten, so being the end of term they would be leaving but Lani’s in year 1 why would she care??"
" They…sob…had a…sob ….farewell today…..sob, sob, sob… and two of them have said hello to me in the playground and…..sob…sob… Now I’ll Never See Them Again!!"
OH Help.
Oh. poor little thing. Hope she got over the despair.
Grace seemed pretty deeply upset as well. She wasn’t an inconsolable jelly-blubber, but she was very quiet and sober, with little red eyes… I got caught on the hop as well. Year 10 finished? Good for them! But Grace was genuinely dealing with loss and grief. Comes from the strangest places sometimes.