Today is one of those classic stay-at-home dreary days. I'm fortunate enough to have the day off of work so sloppy sweats for the day it is! I'm not out to impress all the other preschool moms at drop-off or pick-up....
I wish I could have given Sean the day off. I would have liked to have kept him home and cuddled all day with him like I used to. But he's grown now....
Today when I dropped him off at school I had a wistful-mom moment. Sean got out of the car - I'm careful to give him the kiss on the head before I get near the school and no longer shout "I love you" out the opened car window - and I watched him "fast walk" through the crowd of kids waiting to be let in.
He didn't stop to say "Hi" to anyone. No one stopped him to say "Hey". He just walked through the crowd and didn't notice anyone around him.
And no one noticed him.
I wondered for a moment if Sean had any friends and for a split-second my heart broke.
Sean has never been to a sleepover and hasn't been to a birthday party since the days of when you invited the entire class. No one really knows him and how truly amazing and wonderful he is.
It's been painfully obvious over the years how he's been excluded. One time we were out as a family at a small indoor amusement park/video game place. A classmate of Sean's - and fellow Cub Scout - was having a birthday party. It was as close to an all-class invite as you could get....except that Sean was with us.
I felt so bad.
I couldn't hide the party from him and I refused to hide him from the party.
In a rare vindictive witch moment, I hoped the parents of the boy and all the other parents that had stayed with their kids that day saw us there and felt horrible.
I'm sure they didn't.
But that was years ago.
Will Sean find friends as he transitions from the therapeutic day school program to the mainstreaming of the junior high?
I don't know.
And if I think about, then my heart just might break.
You've said it for many of us .. thank you for your eloquence.
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