My darling baby girl—my sweet youngest child, who will soon be six—darted in front of her school bus this morning. Praise be to the good, gracious God in heaven it was not her time to go or even a time meant to harm a single hair on her precious head. (Hopefully you will forgive me this crazy post, obviously my emotions are running fast and furious and right at the surface! It’s probably only gonna get worse, too, people so you’ve been warned!)
I won’t bore you with all the details of our regular morning routine and how I thought we had this down to a science. Bottom line: I dropped the ball this morning. I spaced out and didn’t get her out of the vehicle in my normal pattern. She was later than the other kids, and she made it over to the bus just fine, I really was watching! However, the bus driver (truly NOT at fault, she has a varying # of kids who get on at this stop every day) had already shut the doors. This scared my poor girl and she was in the process of running back to me. Long story short, I heard the bus go into ‘gear’ and I knew my baby had not had enough time to get on the bus yet. I screamed her name and went running to the front of the bus. I actually don’t even think the bus had moved forward at all, but it was definitely ‘ready’ to.
I’m about to absolutely freak out when I see that sweet thing hop over to my side of the bus with a smile that is still haunting me. She had that ‘I’m smiling because I think I’m in trouble but I’m so stinking scared’ look. My heart stopped, I grabbed her up, and then the tears started (at that point just hers), and do you know what she said? “The doors were shut and I couldn’t get in.” Oh how my heart hurts even now.
I squeezed that baby so tight and am even now am counting the minutes till she comes gets home…two hours and ten minutes. (I’m making her favorite chili right now and even considering giving her Easter goodies the minute she walks in the door). I regretted sending her after it happened. I just wanted to curl up with her on my lap. all. day. long.
The bottom line is I failed her today. I made a mistake that could have been a defining moment in my life. So I’ve spent the entire morning in tears, regret, replaying the scene a million times over in my head. (So go ahead, if you feel you must, and leave comments about being a bad mother, you can’t say any worse than I’ve already said to myself today and if you do, we’ll just delete your comment or at least Jen will since I have not taken the time to sign up for our new comment system *smile*.) Jen has a saying that God even looks out for the stupid. Well, that was me today.
And yet the dominant feeling today (after about 3-4 hours of self recriminations and sobbing) is I’m overwhelmed with thankfulness on this really, really Good Friday.
For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways;
Psalms 91:11
