Today I was on Facebook while waiting in a doctor’s office and noticed a friend’s status update about the happenings of her morning (my apologies to those of you who have no idea what I just wrote). She is a teammate of mine from Notre Dame and her post stated that she sent her son on his first field trip today.

This might seem minor to some, but it wasn’t to me.

I recall vividly the day my oldest son’s first permission slip came home for his field trip to the Baltimore Aquarium. It was the first month of Kindergarten and I knew the field trip was coming. I had prepared myself as best as possible, knowing since his birth that this day would come. The day he wanted to ride a bus.

I thought I could do it. I wantedto do it…I really did - and I still do. But I wasn’t ready. It had nothing to do with my son; it had nothing to do with a school that I knew would be sensitive to my feelings and fears; it had nothing to do with thinking that buses are unsafe, because I do not believe they are unsafe. It just had everything to do with me. And that is not a usual place for me to be - only thinking of myself. I was devastated for my son and sorry that I would keep him from traveling with his friends and from being a normal kindergartner.

So I drove him. We met up with his class at the aquarium and we stopped for ice cream on the way home. We have done this for each field trip over the past two years. It is no longer a discussion at our house, nor with his teachers; it just is what it is - and it’s just what we do. It might not be my son’s first choice, but he has embraced it. We often talk about looking at an event or situation that we might not like, and finding something good that has come from it. From this, we have both found a special time for us to spend together…no carpool, no brother, no dad - just he and I.

I was reminded and reaffirmed and re-saddened by the revelation that my teammate also struggles with sending her son on a bus. I know many of my teammates do not share in our struggle - and I know many others who do, yet send their child on the bus anyway. I envy them. I admire them. I am not one of them, but I hope to be. I know there will come a time when my children will ride a bus and I will be thrilled for them. But I will miss my one-on-one time with my child in the car. Hopefully when that time comes, I will find something good that has come from missing that.

These are the small moments - scrolling through Facebook and staying updated on a teammate’s life - that catch me off guard. They remind me that life goes on, and yet in a moment I am taken back to a time or an emotion that is so powerful it never fully goes away. This too I must embrace and in it, find the good.