This week my son achieved a milestone without much planning and I am scrambling internally to get to terms with it.
In December, the Town of Canmore launched the local bus system. Mid-January I got exhausted of waiting for an always late son – 40 minutes to an hour when leaving the pool on a daily basis, adding to an already long day in the office for me. Waiting is not the problem – but ignoring my requests to be ready by certain time was.
So, this week he started to pick up the town bus to school and back home at the end of the day. The first day was a tad bit dark for him to walk alone and he used the word ‘terrifying’ to describe it, but our neighbour saw him on the bus and suggested to walk together every morning, which they are doing now. It is very precious to see them walking together and even more to receive this type of email mid-morning: Ian doesn’t like music class – 90% of the boys don’t like music class. The teacher is mean. But sometimes music class is O.K. when they are doing songs like “Nowhere Man”. The walk went fine this morning.
I also see myself in his path – how exciting it was to start walking around the town by myself when I was 11 years old! He is 9, and I can see the benefits already. Last night he was telling me that he had to jump out of the hot tub to be ready for the bus in less than 10 minutes. This wouldn’t happen if I was there, sitting in the foyer and patiently waiting for him. As he now knows, the bus will not wait for him!
Seeing my son going from completely dependent to mostly independent in a question of hours created a big whole in my heart that I am trying to fill and understand since then. As much as I applaud this whole thing, I can’t stop grieving the baby that I will never have again.