Saying Goodbye

My son has started coming to the window of his classroom to wave goodbye to me as I drive past. There is a set of small wooden stairs that a teacher will put under the window and then they open it for him. I pull to the side of the entrance road and open the passenger window so I can wave and call out to him. It's super sweet, but it's almost twice as hard to leave him now because I have to tear myself away from him twice: once in the classroom and again as I drive away from the window. This morning the teachers were busy so there were no stairs to climb and no open window for me to call "I love you!" through. There was only his little head bouncing up over the window sill as he jumped up and down trying to see me and his little hand waving goodbye.

I hate leaving him. I hate that I have to leave him to go to a job I don't care about. I work because I have to in order to keep a roof over our heads and food on our plates. Maybe it would be easier to leave him if I was going to do something worthwhile or interesting, but my position is almost entirely unnecessary. I spend all day waiting to see him, then our evening goes by in a flash, and suddenly it's bedtime. I never want it to be bedtime because it means our time together is over for another day. I can't wait for him to wake up in the morning so I can hug him and kiss him and hear him laugh for a few minutes before we rush off to school and work. There is never enough time together.

One night when I was tucking him in and he wasn't feeling well I told him "I am always, always right here if you need me." It has become one of the things we repeat to each other before saying goodnight most nights. This morning he said it over and over in the car on the way to school. Always, little buddy. Always.