Eight years ago, I had permission to pick up my granddaughter
Hannah at her middle school after school was out for that day. I remember that
day as if it were yesterday, for it was my son’s birthday [as well as her dad’s.]
and it was warm, sunny and some leaves were swirling around across the street.
I had parked in the faculty parking lot because I had been a teacher but not at
that school.
As I sat in my parked car, my eyes took in the familiar
surroundings for I knew them well—in fact I had stared at them for three long
years but that was long ago. Her school was a middle school but it had been a
high school and the one I attended as a student. I could picture the football
players standing near Park Avenue: I was a sophomore and fourteen years old at
that time and I was terrified just walking by them. That was a silly thought
that popped into my head as I stared in that direction from the parking lot.
It’s amazing how memories of the past came rushing into my
mind of who was standing where, of the windows of the former classrooms I was
in and the guys I had dated—for I could see them in my mind’s eye. For a
second, I wanted to go back in time and relive just a part of those three years
to undo some choices I had made but then it hit me like a bolt of lightning
–did I ever think then that I would be in the school’s parking lot waiting for
my granddaughter? Never occurred to me at all at that time and why would it in
the first place?
“Had I not made that choice to date a man who was older than
me and eventually marry him, then my granddaughter would not have existed” I
thought to myself and it was one of those “George Bailey” moments from the
movie “It’s A Wonderful Life” where Clarence the angel, grants George his wish
that he’d never been born—not that I wished that, but I did consider the
ramifications of the fact that my son wouldn’t have been born, much less her
had I made a different choice in my marriage, and such was the circle that
would be.
I pass by that school often but my granddaughter is now in
college, and although she is, I still picture that day I had parked in the
faculty parking lot to wait for her to come rushing to my car. Just seeing her was a moment of pure
happiness. It was the perfect day of fall’s early entrance, past memories and
the joy I felt in being a grandmother. After she got in my car, we were off to
see her dad [and my son,] on his birthday: He too had gone to the very same school when
it was a high school.
It really is amazing how life comes around full circle, but
sometimes you need to stop and look at where you were long ago—if it still
exists. Luckily it did for me on that very day.
Sherry Hill
© Copyright 2017
Sherry Hill
All Rights Reserved
