15 years ago, I waddled with a heavily pregnant body around the corner of my little rental house, past a ditch with a small, crawdad-filled stream, past the scent of tamales and Suavitel laundry soap hanging in the air, and past trees with initials carved into them from starry-eyed teenagers. I was bringing my first-born toddler son, faithfully each week to the story hour at the little library closest to us. It’s there that we discovered the likes of Eric Carle, Jan Brett… finger rhymes and overdue fines. We might’ve packed a lunch and walked a little further to the sunny Californian seashore to enjoy sandy, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and saltwater soaked shoes, before returning home for naptime. He was my world. We did stories, park days, mommy groups, daily Mass… and we did Joy.

Life orbiting around one young child at the epicenter is a marvelously unique and precious time in a woman’s mothering career.

I am here again in the very same and entirely different way. Six of the seven children are all in a place that They call school, where an education is promised even if Real Life must be sacrificed. There are some things I can not control.  And my youngest 3-year-old boy will also begin pre-school tomorrow. Just twice a week for what amounts to only 8 out of 168 hours in a week. He may as well have been conscripted into a foreign army by the way my heart is hemorrhaging for this separation. I never wanted this. I am a mother ripe with jealousy for those given the privilege of educating my own children now. But I digress…

All mothers taste a piece of this on some level. And all homeschooling mothers who resort to brick-and-mortar solutions know the pain more than most. We’ve known Real Life and have steeped our children in the riches of a homegrown education. But circumstances change things, slightly for some and drastically for others. And by loosening the fists that protects our ideals, we open our palms to a surrender that we never wanted, and may even adamantly object to. But such is life. Such is Calvary. 

For now, there will be some days when it is just him and me. Today, we ran errands. We folded laundry. We read stories. He played with blocks and cars while Mama answered emails, paid some bills, wrote to professors, read some textbooks, scheduled appointments, and scratched her temples the way she does when she’s overwhelmed. We ate leftover tacos for lunch and giggled at the sudden rain that came through the sunroof of the car. He told me he loves me “bigger than the world”. And it was such a very different beginning to a one-on-one relationship with this child. My very last, first time. He was not exactly the epicenter of my life that has astounding demands and pressures now. But, like my firstborn… we still did Joy.  

What gives the most extraordinary peace is knowing that the most beautiful thing in the world once came from a place called Calvary if I’m not mistaken. And though on an infinitely smaller level,  I am not the first Woman who has ever had to give up her own flesh and blood…