No First Day of Kindergarten and COVID Testing for Grief

Isabella would have started kindergarten Friday. I had not anticipated the pain around this milestone – it feels like the raw grief of the first year, a sorrow that’s acute and heavy.

I work in an elementary school and am more aware of the district calendar than most people who do not have school age children. Thursday night while doing dishes and the typical nighttime chores, I ached inside with the lack of preparing anything for my daughter’s first day of school. I thought of the other five-year-olds that I’ve known since they were inside their mothers, being knit together the same time as Isabella, all of them are growing, thriving, and beginning a new stage. Friday, I did not take any first day of school photos or drop anyone off at school. Yet I found myself watching the clock, knowing kindergarteners all around the city were being dropped off and later, picked up.

Saturday morning, I met up with several friends for breakfast, one of whom was pregnant with me and her son had just started kindergarten the previous day. As we all talked, I eventually mustered up the courage to ask how he did yesterday. (Great, aside from missing the school bus which came five minutes earlier than they expected.) It was good to hear and as the conversation extended to different reactions to dropping off kids at the beginning of the year, I had to excuse myself to breathe and return when the topic had moved on. I haven’t had such a strong reaction in years to hearing about another mother’s experience of parenting a child Isabella’s age.

All day yesterday, I was absolutely exhausted. The emotional toll of anticipating the first day of her not attending school, experiencing the grief anew, and picturing what it would have been like for me to drop her off caught up to me. I took a long nap of the weary of spirit. This morning, I woke up still exhausted and my throat was sore; given this day and age, I took a COVID test. As I talked with my husband and saw the negative test result, it clicked for me that the physical signs I took for sickness were actually manifestations of grief. The sheer exhaustion, a tight throat from holding back tears, the desire to stay in bed and shut out the world, is grief not a virus.

There are families everywhere who mourn the first day of school, knowing that there are unseen absences in every classroom. Some donate supplies in their child’s memory, others take the day off and visit the cemetery, a few post photos showing the absence, and others retreat for a few days. I didn’t have the foresight to donate anything and I don’t have the energy right now to drive to the cemetery. I’m sleeping a bit extra, holding my children here a little tighter, pulling back for a couple days, and another SLP at my school is seeing all the kindergarteners so I don’t need to go into those classrooms, knowing my little girl would have been there.