Our door remains empty, on the first day of school.
No awkward photographs.
No fussing over a clean uniform.
The first day of school but you are missing.
The first day of school.
Jason should be starting Reception this year. I should be rushing around buying his new shoes, the uniform I had forgotten about and preparing him for what school is like.
Our lives would be filled with excitement, our little boy growing up so fast.
School starts and the internet is flooded with those first day photos, standing so smartly in the new, clean uniform in front of the door. Their book bags, water bottles, lunch boxes and PE kit piled in to their hands, promising yourself you won’t cry but knowing you will when they step through the doorway in to this whole new world.
This year, instead of watching Jason on his first day of school, I will be working in a reception class. I’ll be right there in the thick of it, watching the parents on the playground, the children excited/nervous for their first day. It’s going to be so hard knowing I should be one of them. Oh how I wish I was one of them.
When an adult dies, you grieve for the memories and the lives you shared. When a baby or a child dies, you grieve for all the memories you don’t get to have. Everything, for the rest of our lives, is tinged with sadness, there is always someone missing. I don’t know how Jason’s first day at school would have gone, due to his Down Syndrome and other health issues I don’t even know if he’d have been able to go to a mainstream school or whether he’d have needed extra support. It’s hard being a mother and not knowing your child. Not having the chance to know them or even be able to imagine the child they would be.
A huge milestone that has been taken away from us again.
To all those parents who are struggling at the beginning of the school year, I am with you, I hear you and I am there for you.
Mothering A Rainbow 