Melville Cooke
IDEALLY, THE September school blues should be written about in the first week of the ninth month, but two 'Js' conspired in consecutive weeks to spoil that lesson plan. First it was the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and assorted Junk Lifting Practitioners, which needed to be addressed in a timely fashion, then last week the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) decided to leave me hot under the collar.
It got so bad that this week I was looking for a flight of marauding Johncrows to continue the run of bad 'Js', but I guess even the worst of carrion must rest some Tuesday.
Postponed by the roadblocks it may have been, but the first school day of September came with all the tears, the worry, the doubts, the anguish, the fears and the stretching of bonds that are inevitable when a child goes to school for the first time. And I am not talking about the children here, OK?
TRAUMATIC EVENT
Having your children out of sight and out of personal care or the care of close relatives or friends for the first time since they were born is a very traumatic event. You wonder how they will adjust (and if they will adjust), hope that nobody will hurt them, agonise over whether they will be able to open their lunch kits, if they will fall off the swing and if they will get a turn on the swing in the first place.
Despite what the teachers say about not lingering in the classroom when you leave them that first day you still hang around, delaying that final separation as much as you can. And after a few hours of agony, waiting for that phone call to rush to the hospital because there is the possibility of a broken arm, you turn up at the school half an hour before classes are scheduled to end.
When you realise that everything is OK, the sense of relief is overwhelming. Children adapt much better to the September school blues than their parents, I believe. They have this sense of trust, that you will be there, that keeps them occupied with whatever it is that they are given to do during those first stages of school life. Sure, there are the tearful ones, but specifically for me as well as other people I have observed, the misty eyes on that first day of separation are from the adult side.
Your children are not your children, Khalil Gibran said, and we as parents know that we will have them to ourselves for a very short time, but when we realise on that first ever day of school that this is the end of the time that we have our offspring with us almost always it still hits home hard. The house feels empty and there is a certain longing for the little annoyances that only a child can bring that we thought we could do without.
It is sobering to see them in a strange looking uniform, among a crowd of similarly dressed children, and realise that this is the first of many, many goodbyes, each of which will take them further away from us not only physically but also in terms of forging their own identities, which may or not be what we want them to become. There is this sense of loss that does not quite go away when pick-up time comes around.
It is sobering and it is so, so sad. They should have trauma counselling for parents, actually. The kids? They bounce back like squash balls and keep on going.
SQUASH BALL EFFECT
There are some parents who have mastered the squash ball effect as well, because there is no way some little ones I see on the road by themselves, making the trek to and from school alone, could be out there otherwise. They look like little explorers, in a uniform with enough room to grow into, a knapsack made for a bigger kid on their backs and a heck of a lunch kit clutched in one hand, making their way through the jungle of snarling automobiles, crossing expanses of arid asphalt, teetering on the cliffs of high sidewalks, avoiding the gigantic steps of adults. My heart always goes out to the little children who trek it to and from school on their own, and even as I always get angry I realise that many people just cannot be there for their children.
Please, drivers and pedestrians, look out for them. They are ours too.
Melville Cooke is a freelance writer.
