The first day

The first day of school!  How many memories does that bring back?

I remember my own very first day of school, right after Thanksgiving in 1954.  I had turned five over the holidays and we had moved to Springfield, Illinois where they had a kindergarten.  I was excited and scared.  As the oldest of four children I was the first to leave home in the morning and go somewhere by myself, but my Daddy had been going to school my whole life and I wanted to do everything he did.

I remember all the first days of my children too.  We always took a picture in their new clothes while they stood in front of the secretary.  Someday I would love to get all those pictures together and watch them grow from tiny little people who could barely reach the doorknob on their first day of preschool to their first day of college!

Last year my youngest granddaughter went to her first day of preschool with her daddy.  She was one!  This week my oldest granddaughter had her first day of college!  I didn’t see either one, or take her picture, but I can see them in my mind’s eye. 

Schools change, the age at which we go changes, but the idea of embarking on a new adventure, that first step into a new odyssey continues to fill me with excitement and anticipation.