An Education Begins, With Synchronicity And Everything.

Bea has been ready for school for the past year.  Crying every morning as Owen got on the bus, insisting she was Deaf and should be allowed to join him.  Not buying that story time at the library was school.

Me, finding the whole normal child thing still a novelty, have been loving her sponge like nature.  Wanting to know everything about everything.  What and where and why and how.  Especially loving stories about Mommy and Daddy.  Stories about our childhoods.

I took her to my old neighborhood.  Showed her the house in which I grew up.  Crept down our little dead end road and told her a little something about each house. About the really old house at the end, one of the oldest in the town, and the nice couple that lived there. And she sopped it up.

And it came time to choose an actual school for her. I could have picked a dozen preschools that are closer to our house, and less costly.  But I am lazy and went with one that my friends and neighbors send their girls.

Being so lazy, I sent in the application so late, I was sure the classes would have been filled.

I was shocked when the call came and I learned that Bea had been given the last spot in the class.

Finally, last week, was her first day of school.  The previous week, we had a "Meet and Greet" with the teachers and staff, learned the routine, handed in forms.

I was chatting with an office worker/teacher aide about Bea.  Telling her how curious she is about my childhood. Something bugged me about this woman, I had to ask her;

"You don't happen to have relatives in MyHomeTown do you?  A couple with your last name lived in the house at the end of my road."

"The 1600's house?  My parents bought that when I was in high school."

She remembered us.  The family with six kids in the big white house at the top of the hill.

We called Bea over and gave her her first dose of Small World.  Bea was not impressed.

The next week, her official first day.  The first day I would be leaving her in the hands of these educators of sponges.  I lingered for a bit, wanting to touch base with her teacher, Ms. C.

Ms. C. also eager to do some touching.

"You won't believe this.  I was talking with Ms. R.  You grew up on the same road as the 1600's house?"

"Yes I did.  Isn't that cool?"

"The big white house, at the top of the hill?"

"Yes, that was ours."

"My mother grew up in that house."

Even as a child, I knew enough to feel lucky to live in such a house. On such a road.

And even though I tried and tried to leave the seat of my childhood, I know how lucky I am that circumstances landed me back here.

And how lucky for Bea, to start her schooling with two women with such a connection to my childhood.

I could have picked any of a dozen schools to be her first.  Her first teacher could have been any old teacher.

Not that I believe I've chosen any path down which I've wandered.  Or that I've chosen the people who have wandered in and out of my life.

I just find myself feeling blessed that the Universe saw fit to place Bea's first bit of education under the wing of a woman with whom she shares such a special thing in common.  A thing they could and did bond over as Bea's eyes grew into saucers, and her mouth shrunk to a little o when Ms. C. told her;

"Your Mommy and MY Mommy grew up in the same house."

She is ready.  Her world is about to get so much bigger. And I'm revelling in how very small it is.

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