Back to School!

 

Today I sent my first-born to school after 18 months of distance learning. Today was my little boy’s first day of going to school in a school bus.

 

Over the past few weeks, I had been excited to send Saira back to school. As a working mom, I was unable to keep track of her online learning. My repeated calls from work reminding, requesting and reprimanding her to join the classes, switch on the camera and complete the assignments were not entirely fruitful. I had come to the realisation that perhaps face-to face learning with the teachers is more suitable for my girl.

This morning, we revisited the much forgotten ‘morning- hustle- and-bustle’ but this time, with two kids. The two of them in new uniforms, new facemasks, new school bags and new lunch boxes boarded the bus and drove off to school.

After they left, I was met with an unexpected silence. My home suddenly turned lifeless! There was no teacher lecturing in the background, no piles of cluttered books, no messy beds, no cute toddler talks and no sibling fights to disrupt. The cushions were not on the floor and the toys were not all over the place. The house was exactly what I wanted it like, yet I felt empty inside and a lump in my throat. I sent two kids to school in the middle of a pandemic. I wondered if I did the right thing.

 

I remembered the first day I dropped my anxious, recently-potty-trained three-year-old Saira at the nursery. She was apprehensive and I was heavily pregnant. She did not want to go alone, and I knew I wasn’t allowed inside. She told me a million times that I should sit with her in the class. At the gate when the nanny clutched her hand and stopped me, Saira turned around, looked at me with a face full of fear and tears. “Umma.. Don’t go..”, she wailed. I bit of my metaphorical heart broke off and I was left speechless. I felt the lump in my throat and I wondered if I did the right thing.

 

I guess this is what motherhood is. Weighing the odds and evens and deciding what is best for the little ones that God entrusted us with. Then silently, tearfully wondering if you did the right thing. Why does the right thing have to be so difficult to do?