You know,
I never got Kindergarten
just right. Part time with a
pediatric specialist who
wrote that I showed
echolalic speech and
drew grotesque figures for a
child my age. In rooms where
they asked me questions, in
great white rooms where I
was an it, a hamster, rather
than a child at play. The
Kindergarten teacher wrote
“She’s a child without
imagination. The other kids
get along fine. She reacts to
them and I don’t know why.”
So, Kindergarten and I parted ways.
When my son got ready for
school, he went in a class too
big, and paid attention as long
as ostrich showed interest in flight.
The team that served him individually
scheduled with my husband and I to
meet about if we would move him from
the traditional classroom to a different
place at another school. But I was a
student, too. While in graduate school,
students must attend a mandatory
meeting. No excuse said one much
wiser than me. Like a person whose
finger touched a hot glue gun, I
typed with such a reaction.
The wise one could
hold her head high and say, “We will
only put out the best,” so I laid down
the time for my son at her holy altar.
Eleven educators moved their time, so
I could attend a meeting that mattered
as much as the dust below my shoes.
My son was moved in the middle of
a year, so Kindergarten and I
parted ways.
She was ready. She knew her words.
In March, we registered her as gray
clouds gathered over the school. She
went down the hall and said, “Who will
my teacher be?” My daughter, Corrie,
added one and two, and wrote words
like the and mom. She read aloud Hop
on Pop. Take her picture in front of the
school in a sparkle dress. Sparkles only
on the skirt overlay because she hated
it against her skin as much as she
disliked blue jeans. Only her August
never came.
The kids from her preschool class
lined up at the top of the stairs. I
hear the teacher call names I know,
and I see the face of a boy who knew
my Corrie. She spoke of him all the
time. Only he would not pull out a
chair again, and the teacher never
said Corrie’s name as the little ones
lined up, and I waited for my son.
I walk in the rain as my son tells
me about how he wants to swim.
Just as some people are not signed
off on eternity, Kindergarten was
nothing but sparkles on skin and
tossed out blue jeans.
By Rebecca T. Dickinson
for Corrie
12 weeks today …
Corrie's Season 