I’ve had a difficult, emotional week. For a couple of reasons.

First, one I’ve already written enough about, but feel like writing more about. Rachel starting middle school. So far so good on the middle school front. Last night, I went to 6th grade open house to meet her teachers. I knew several of them already because she is on the same team Lauren was on in 6th grade, so she has some of the same teachers Lauren had. She also has the same band teacher that Brandon had, and who is Lauren’s jazz band director.

Rachel proudly showed me how quickly she can open her locker. All summer, whenever she would talk about middle school, that was the thing she was most worried about…being able to remember her locker combination!

In true Rachel “little miss social” fashion, teachers who weren’t hers and parents of kids I had never seen before were saying “Hi Rachel!” in the hallways as we moved from room to room. That shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did…I remember going to her kindergarten open house and being completely amazed at all of the teachers and even older kids who seemed to know her.

She wants to join some clubs…too many, actually, which again, shouldn’t surprise me at all…yesterday, she brought home a pamphlet with all of the clubs and their descriptions, and she had drawn little stars by the ones she wants to join…Clarinet Choir, Intramurals, Yearbook Staff, Computer Club, and Stream Team. I told her she can’t do them all and she doesn’t understand why.

The funniest thing about last night was the reaction I got from a few of her teachers. Even teachers who Brandon, Justin and Lauren didn’t have knew who they were, and Rachel is so very different from her siblings. And her teachers have already quickly figured that out in only 3 days!

So all in all, it’s been a good week for her, and some of my fears about her being in middle school are alleviated maybe a tiny little bit. I was still amazed at so many of the girls and how much older they seem than Rachel. Maybe that is only MY distorted perception since it is hard for me to think of Rachel as anything but “my baby.” I did leave there wondering how many days it will take her to ask me if she can wear make up though!

Okay, so on to my next emotional “thing.” I will preface this by saying that for some reason, Aunt Mary has been on my mind so often this summer. I had my little “breakdown” that I always have on Rachel’s birthday, and that must have triggered it, but I usually quickly get over it and move on. Maybe it didn’t help that just a week after that, we went to Olney, and it’s impossible for me to go to Olney and not spend nearly every minute I’m there thinking of her. But still, it hasn’t ended. I think she has been on my mind more this summer than she ever has been in the 7 1/2 years since she died. All summer, I’ve felt sort of melancholy about it, and wondered why, but that’s about as far as it went. Just wondering.

Then, on Wednesday, I went to Cathi’s sister’s funeral. It was very sad, and I felt so bad for Cathi. And every time the priest or reader would say what song we would sing next, I thought “Please don’t let it be ‘How Great Thou Art.’”

I love that song, but so did Aunt Mary…it was her favorite. It was played at Uncle Dan’s funeral, and again at her funeral…at the end when the family was walking out of the church. A year later, when I went to Aunt Marion’s funeral, it was played again. I’m ashamed to say I haven’t gone to church in a very long time, and Aunt Marion’s funeral was the last time I heard “How Great Thou Art.”

For some reason, I had a feeling on Wednesday that it was coming. Probably since it’s a common song at a Catholic funeral. I knew I would have a hard time hearing it. And I did.

As soon as I heard the first notes from the organ, I knew the tears would come and I wouldn’t be able to stop them. I normally enjoy singing in church. I don’t have much of a singing voice, but I like to sing, and I have always figured in church, it doesn’t matter if you aren’t all that great at singing because you blend in with everyone else, and no one notices that you really suck at singing. I didn’t sing at this funeral though because I forgot my glasses so I couldn’t read the words in the hymnal, and they were all unfamiliar to me.

Normally, I can sing all of the many verses of “How Great Thou Art” without the aid of a hymnal, but I couldn’t do it. I tried, but I couldn’t sing through my tears.

At the funeral, I sat with Deb and Stephanie and five ladies from the Angel Ball committee. I know they had to be wondering why I was crying so much, when I barely knew Cathi’s sister. No one asked me, but I was sort of wishing afterwards that they would have. It would have been nice to share my feelings about my dear Aunt Mary with them. Sigh…

Last night, I went into Rachel’s room to tuck her in, and noticed that a bedspread that Aunt Mary made was on her bed. Last fall, I painted and redecorated her bedroom and she has a new bedspread. But I also have a cross stitched quilt that Aunt Mary made that matches her bedroom. She switches quilts every once in awhile. Sometimes, the quilt I bought her is on her bed, sometimes, Aunt Mary’s quilt is. She hasn’t had Aunt Mary’s quilt on her bed in several months, probably since winter, so seeing it last night…kind of a shock. I wanted to ask her what made her get it out of the linen closet again, but I didn’t. I couldn’t.

A month or so ago, I wrote a post on the Share blog about the potholes of grief. About how you can just be tooling along in life, when suddenly, out of the blue grief hits. It may be a small pothole that only jars you for a brief moment, or it can be a larger one, that really jolts you and takes you a while to recover from. I wrote about how that often happens to me in my work at Share, and that when I once shared it with Cathi, she told me that it is my babies way of making sure that I was thinking of them.

I’ve been thinking of that a lot the past few days…wondering if Aunt Mary just wanted me to be thinking of her this summer for some reason. I don’t know what that reason would be. It’s been hard the past few months having her on my mind so much, yet at the same time, comforting. Comforting because I know she is still with me, in my heart, and she always will be. I guess I’ve hit a pothole. A big one, that has really jolted me.

I miss her. I know that I always will. And I hope that she knows that.

Feeling rather silly....I posted this last week, then took it down for fear of anyone who read it thinking I was being ridiculous. Now, I'm posting it again. Fickle much?? :)

Lately, my brain just isn’t what it used to be. I am so forgetful these days. I forget EVERYTHING. I’m okay with big things, but I forget little things, like picking up milk at the grocery store when that is the main thing I went there to buy in the first place. I have gotten out of the shower and realized that I forgot to put conditioner in my hair. I recently locked keys in the car for the first time in probably 20 years. I’ve gotten to work and realized that I left my computer at home! I could go on and on, but I’d depress myself seeing my forgetful ways laid out in front of me in all their glory.

So, if I’m so forgetful, how come today I could remember (vividly!) a day in 1975 like it was only yesterday? I don’t remember the exact date, that’s not important anyway. But I do know it was 1975 because that is when I started middle school. Well, not “middle school” because back then, it was called “Junior High.” Or Hell on Earth. Take your pick.

Kirby Junior High. Where I spent seventh and eighth grade. The lonnnngggggest two years of my childhood. I don’t like even driving by Kirby Junior High, so thank goodness I don’t that often, only when I’m driving on 270 on my way to Illinois. It’s not even called Kirby Junior High anymore. It’s called Hazelwood East Middle School. But it doesn’t matter. In my mind, it will always be Kirby Junior High. It looks exactly the same. Well, from the outside. It’s probably different on the inside, but, I can still envision the hallways and how I walked them those first days wishing I was invisible…the cafeteria, the principal’s office, the science lab where my 8th grade science teacher took great delight in humiliating me…But I digress, even though I could go on and on and on with dredging up the not-so-wonderful memories I have of Kirby Junior High. I won’t.

This afternoon, I was in a different middle school…Mary Emily Bryan Middle School. Or just Bryan. It’s certainly not the first time I’ve been in this school as Brandon, Justin and Lauren have all attended. But it was the first time I had the “flashback” reaction that I had today.

This afternoon, I took Rachel to pick up her schedule, get her locker assignment and purchase her gym clothes. My “baby” is starting middle school. Next Tuesday, she starts 6th grade. I knew this day was going to be tough for me, but I wasn’t expecting WHY it would be tough. I thought just knowing that my “baby” is off to middle school would bring on the emotions. Since I’ve experienced Bryan middle school for the past 7 years, I wasn’t expecting what happened today.

I was standing in a long line in the gym to pick up her schedule. Rachel was flitting around talking to her friends who were there. Of course! As I was standing there in the very slow moving line, I found myself watching the other kids who were coming into the gym. So many of them look so grown up for 6th graders…which is what triggered my memory of my first days of junior high.

I was such a fish out of water. I walked into my first day of junior high feeling like a little kid. All of the girls seemed so much more grown up and “developed” than me…I was a “late bloomer” (LOL). It didn’t help that I didn’t know a soul there. Oh, other than the boy who lived next door to me who gave me the creeps. We had moved in the summer between my 6th and 7th grade year, so I hadn’t had time to make any friends other than a girl who lived down the street, but she was a year younger than me, so she was still in grammar school.

While I was standing in line waiting to get Rachel’s schedule and gym clothes, I couldn’t help but think how so many of the girls coming in looked so much older than Rachel. She still seems like such a little kid to me. I know that she isn’t, she is growing up, but compared to so many other girls…with boobs, makeup…even highlighted hair and acrylic fingernails…she is still a little girl. She still plays with American Girl dolls and Polly Pockets! And so many of the girls I saw today…well, I can’t imagine them playing with Polly Pockets. While Rachel was in sweaty ponytails after a day at 6 Flags, they were girls fussing with their styled hair, putting on lip gloss, and checking out boys. I am not ready for Rachel to be checking out boys at the age of 11!

I couldn’t help it…I wanted to get the hell out of there. I wanted to take Rachel by the hand, leave, and tell her I was going to home school her!

I didn’t have this reaction when Lauren started middle school. But then Lauren has always seemed more grown up. Her birthday just missed the cutoff, so she has always been one of the older ones in her class. And Lauren is so self confident…sure of who she is….and doesn’t really much care what other people think of her. She dresses the way she wants, wears her hair the way she wants, does the things she wants, and really doesn’t worry about what anyone thinks of her. Rachel, though…Rachel is more like me. In some ways at least.

She’s definitely more social than I have ever been. I was always quiet and shy, and those two words never have been and never will be used to describe my last born child. But, she is just like me in other ways. She is sensitive and takes to heart things people say to her. Her feelings are easily hurt. I swear, it’s like she has the best of Tony (her outgoing social ways) and the worst of me (her sensitivity).

But that is who she is. And that combination just doesn’t seem like it will fare well in middle school. She wants everyone to like her, worries about what kids think, wants to fit in…worries about having the “right” clothes…and all I could think about when I was in the Mary Emily Bryan Middle School gym today was my BABY walking through the halls of middle school feeling the way I did when I first walked the halls of Kirby Junior High. Those were not good years for me, and I sometimes think that things that happened then shaped many of the feelings I have about myself, that I try so hard to overcome.

This post isn’t about me, though. It’s about Rachel and how I dread her going to middle school. The thought of this bubbly sweet (oh so very sweet!) child of mine feeling like she doesn’t fit in, or wishing she were invisible, is heart wrenching for me. I worry that when she has times where she feels less than adequate, or when she is dealing with the girl dramas that I know are coming, that I won’t be able to help her through them or be able to say the “right” things that will enable her to come out of them with her self esteem intact.

I am also dreading the ways that she might change in the next three years. Right now, she is still a little girl. She still comes to me crying when she hurts herself. She wants to snuggle with me on the couch when we watch tv. She hugs me when she gets up in the morning and before she goes to bed at night. She wants to be with me all the time, help me cook, watch me iron, play games, play with my hair…right now, she is still my little girl.

And I know that she won’t be much longer.

Lauren has blossomed in middle school. She has “come out of her shell.” Middle school has been really good for her. I pray that the pressures of middle school don’t change Rachel…don’t change (or crush) her sweet spirit…don’t change who she fundamentally is.

But mostly, I pray that whatever challenges Rachel faces in middle school, that I have the wisdom to help her through them, that my own self esteem issues don’t get in the way. I pray that she will come to me and LET me help her face them.

Finally, I pray that she blossoms in middle school. That she feels free to be her silly, sweet self. At this moment, she is snuggled under a quilt on the couch in the family room. She is almost asleep. She looks so innocent and peaceful. Her thumb is in her mouth. Yeah, she still sucks her thumb sometimes when she sleeps.

It's so hard for me to imagine that in only a few days, she may be walking the halls of a new school feeling as I did in 1975.

I pray she doesn’t.