RSS Feed (xml)We arrive and she runs to the yard and starts jumping on the old tires and battered see saws while I talk with the teacher. I see the shelf where her snack bag goes and I place it there. I glance at the bathrooms and like every bathroom here I have to take a deep breath. I am hesitant to leave, I figure I'll stay as long as she wants but after 15 minutes she tells me I can go. Tears prick the backs of my eyes.
I tell the woman who runs the preschool that I am leaving and she tells me M will be fine. She sees my face and says oh baby, I will love her like she's my own and pulls me into a long hug. Still hugging me she says I promise, because I know how much they matter. My son died last year, his birthday was yesterday. Now the tears fall from my eyes and when she releases me she's crying too. I am so sorry, I say and she says Thank you. He was only 21. I lean over and give her a hug, it's me hugging her this time. We look at each other for a long moment and she says you do not worry, she will be fine. And I believe her because I knew it from the moment I saw this place last week, for everything it's not it's entirely full of love. I reminded her I have friends who want to help with supplies and she promises to make me a list. Friends from where she asks and I tell her from the North and she looks at me and smiles, I don't know why they'd want to help a little school all the way down here but it's how God works and that's how I know that even today everything will be okay. And I leave then, getting in our car and driving back down a little dirt road leading to a paved one and then back onto the dirt.
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