The Wave

Do you ever look back on a moment in time and realize, man, what a dork? If you said no, you’re lying. We were all teenagers once.


I realized I had that moment on the first day of school. There was a little bit of confusion on the bus route. It was supposed to pick Meredith up at our driveway, but listed the house 2 doors down, that has no kids getting on the bus. Since kindergarten has a staggered start, we watched the bus the first day and saw it stop 2 doors down. I made a couple of calls to the bus garage and explained the situation. I didn’t want her on the neighbor’s driveway if they were backing up to go to work and not expecting an adorable kindergartener in their way. I wasn’t completely confident the bus garage understood my call going into the first day of school.

The first day of school comes and of course we are taking pictures and all gather at the end of the driveway to wait for the bus. As if we weren’t obvious enough with 2 parents, a child with a backpack and lunch bag, and camera flashing, I waved. And not a “hey, what’s up”, type of wave. Like a S.O.S. come deliver me from the island I’ve been stranded on wave. It’s possible a helicopter landed the next street over wondering if they were supposed to take her to school. Strangers were stopping on the street to personally walk her to school. Neighborhood children were ready to load her onto their bikes. A local motorcycle gang was hurriedly attaching a side car. But my baby, she made it on the right bus. Who’s to know if that would have happened without my enthusiastic wave.