Once again,I looked out my window this Monday morning and observed parents as they brought their sons to the entrance gate of Lourdes School. I noticed a familiar pattern of behavior...more like a ritual...,and one which I performed every morning when I used to bring my own two sons to the same school.
After bringing the kid to the gate,there would be this last words of advice (or admonition),then a kiss and finally, a lingering look, as the parent watched his or her son disappear into the crowd of boys. Only then would the parent move on.
It's that lingering look that caught my attention this morning. Why did we parents instinctively do this? We knew our kids were safe, after all we personally accompanied them to the gate. And yet after we let them go,we just would stand there and watch.Perhaps we also knew instinctively that our kids would glance back and check us out and give us a last goodbye wave.
Or maybe it was because for a brief moment,we would be amazed at how our kids had grown!
Whatever the reason for lingering, I'm sure when each of us parents looked at our sons we were looking at them with love.
And that's why I guess, not being able to ever see them alive would be the worst feeling any parent would have to bear in his or her lifetime.
One of my former classmates from Grade school is going through this right now. He lost his son and to make matters worse,he wasn't able to be around for his funeral.
The indescribable feeling of loss was best pictured by another former classmate, Sonny Hernandez, when he pointed out that we had terms for a husband who loses his wife (widower),or for a wife whose husband dies (widow.) A kid who loses his parents is called an orphan.
But a parent who loses a child...there are no words to describe this...just a s no words will probably be able to describe the loss.
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