I have left the building...

My baby is starting school. I know people everywhere are saying that at this time of year, but at just two and a half short years, I really can bemoan with all my mommy angst: my baby is starting school!

Janie is now old enough to go to the toddler class at the special education school. I wanted her to go. She needs a place where she can have new [and eventually familiar] experiences. Her first day was Tuesday. I told the teacher I would stay if they wanted me to, since Janie needs assistance with mostly everything. My apprehension inflated and my heart sank a little as I watched all the other children walk into the classroom. It was easy to see that Janie was the most delayed child in the room. Was I doing the right thing in bringing her to school? The teacher kindly skirted around my offer and took Janie from me. I walked out of the room in a stupor and began down the hall, feeling that panicky feeling of knowing you left something behind. My body was moving but my mind kept saying, "Wait, am I really supposed to leave, as in leave the building?... wait, really? really really? They hardly know her. Should I go back and make sure they know that she can't feed herself, that she falls backwards from sitting and can't catch herself and..." I quickly came up with an excuse to stay and turned around. One of the secretaries helped me find Julie and together we watched Janie through the classroom window for a few minutes. She was sitting in the lap of one of the teacher's aides, playing with a bucket of blocks. Julie cooed over how well Janie was doing, introduced me to the mom of another of the families she works with, and then told me to go shopping.

To go. *deep breath*

I had come in on the wrong side of the building, so I had quite a walk back to the car. It was unnervingly surreal. I finally called Jason. I needed someone to help me get out of there emotionally. "This is so different from nursery," I fretted. "At least with nursery we are still in the building!" I found the exit. Got in the car. Drove home. Picked up a few of Janie's clothes from off the floor and found myself sitting in her room, looking around dazedly.

I didn't feel like myself. I was on the teacher end of this scenario not so long ago. I used to think it silly that parents would worry about pushing their little ones out of the nest. Don't worry--they will learn to fly, I wanted to say! School is a wonderful place. Now as the parent, I still knew this. But now I also understood that sending them off to school also means sending a piece of your heart out into the world. And the world is big and mean and scary and hard sometimes. And sometimes it hurts.

Fast forward to last night. I watched the movie "Joseph Smith The Prophet of the Restoration" (at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building) for the first time in a few years. For the first time since becoming a mom. And there before me was Lucy Mack Smith, courageous Mother Smith, refusing to let the doctors take Joseph's leg off, taking a chance to help him have a better life, even though it was uncertain and terrifying. I silently wondered how many times she asked herself if she was doing the right thing. I watched with new eyes as Mother Smith was also compelled to leave the building while everything inside her wanted to stay. She, too, turned back once, unable to stop herself, wanting to somehow save her little one from all the pain and fear that was ahead. And she had to leave, again, until it was over. She couldn't be there with him through it all. As her tears streamed so did mine. Though years of healing followed, undoubtedly Joseph was grateful for the choice his parents made. I guess this is the yearning of all mother hearts. That, despite the pain, their children will come out in one piece, be it physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually.

Janie immediately reached for me when I came to pick her up from school an hour and a half later. Once we were in the car, however, she acted like she was mad at me for leaving her. My heartstrings felt the tug. But stronger than that was the feeling that she needs this experience, perhaps as Mother Smith felt that Joseph would need his leg.

I have come to see many times that motherhood, and for me, being the mother of a child with special needs, is a constant reminder that I have figuratively *left the building,* where I recognize that my life will never, ever ever be the same again. Everything I do and see and understand and learn will be colored by the fact that part of my heart and my view is changed, different now and forever. Becoming a mother is not the only thing that has changed me this way. We are all given experiences where we pass through things that others we know will never have to face. Undoubtedly it tugs at Heavenly Father's heart strings to see us sad and hurting, not understanding why He has seemingly left us, while He knows that we need it, not that He sends the hard things, but that to simply save us from them would jeopardize something greater.

And so,
starting school
it seems
my baby
is not the only one
who needs new [and eventually familiar]experiences.