Opening Day

Today is Opening Day at my school. Parents and students arrive both excited and apprehensive about the year ahead. Sometime this afternoon parents will say goodbye to their children. They will choose their parting words carefully.

The voice a parent uses at this time is a sacred voice. When they speak to their children, they speak from personal experience to the boy or girl they themselves once were. It is a timeless voice, but it is made in order that the child might live into the richness of the present with hope for a better future.

When parents talk this way, children should listen, for their parents are talking to the sacred, to the very holiness of a child's being.

It is ironic that children find these conversations uncomfortable.

“I know, dad. I hear you, mom. I know. I know. I know. I KNOW! Please don’t do this. I don’t want to talk about this now!”

Nevertheless, parents, guardians, grandparents, and all those who care about their children, persist. They want them to know that they are worthy of the opportunities they have. They want them to make their lives extraordinary.

Carpe Diem. Seize the Day. Be the best you can be. This is the message parents give their children. Although a child might not realize it now, in time, they will be grateful for the dreams their parents hoped to inspire in them.