The week of February 17th is Take Your Family to School Week, which may sound odd to most, but seemed awfully fitting for me. Usually we hear about Take Your Kid to Work Day, but for me, school and work are one and the same for my mother.
I had the opportunity to take my family to school with me for most of my life. After school in Kindergarten, I finally gained enough independence to walk two blocks from the elementary school to the high school. I would spend afternoons in my mom’s classroom putting stickers on A+ tests, doodling on the white boards, and hanging out with my cool high schooler best friends.
As I got older, I spent countless hours in my mom’s classroom. On the nights of conferences, my brother would wait for what seemed like infinite agonizing hours for eight o’clock to come. Although the wait seemed unbearable, we got to spend a lot of time together. I vividly remember playing many rounds of “trash ball,” watching movies on the projector while laying on the tables, and eating Casey’s pizza together around desk tables.
There were a lot of awful mornings where my mom, my brother, and I woke up for early cross- country practices. While Brandon was off running in the dark, I spent my Friday mornings sleeping on desks pushed together to form a rock solid mattress.
In high school, I was busy with countless sports and extracurriculars, so I spent less time waiting in my mom’s classroom and more time learning. I may have been a sarcastic thorn in her side, but I truly enjoyed (almost) every moment in my mom’s science classes. Not only could I excel in them, but I could pester my teacher, but also love her more than just about anyone in the world. Not many students have such an honor.
Teachers may not love teaching everyday, and I definitely know as a student that I don’t love learning every day, but I did love my mom everyday. I loved coming to her class, eating lunch in her backroom, and knowing that my built-in best friend was downstairs whenever I needed her. I loved seeing my mom and my brother in the hallways and knowing that family was just a few steps away.
Unfortunately, I can’t go back to those days, but those are moments I’ll never forget––a time I’ll always cherish.
A lot of the memories we shared at the high school may seem monotonous, if not a bit mundane, but a lot of the beauty comes from the mundane. A lot of life is mundane, so why wait for the extraordinary to start truly living?
I may not have seen a lot of the world, and I may not have experienced a lot in my life, but I have seen a lot of my mom’s classroom and made a lot of memories there. It may not be the fantastic lifestyle that many people crave, but I now realize it’s the lifestyle I dream of when I think of home. I may want to see more of the world than the four walls of my mom’s classroom, but I know that those four walls have helped shape me into the person I am today. More than those walls, it’s been my mom.
Most people don’t have the opportunity to take their family to school, but I urge you to cherish the moments you do spend together. Whether you’re a college student or a retiree, celebrate the time you spend together today so you don’t have any regrets once it’s gone.