Before I could write this post I had to go stand in the shower and weep for a while.  My heart aches for the parents of these kids.

The fact that I can so easily envision the bus, the students, the parents…. The fact that for the past two years I’ve been putting Davey on the special-needs school van and sending him off with a kiss and a wave (and some mornings a sigh of relief)….  The fact that I have stood on the porch countless afternoons waiting for the white van to back into our driveway, the beep, beep, beep signaling that my son has arrived home….

I am gutted thinking about the moms waiting today.

Davey now attends an out-of-district school. This has transformed his 10-minute ride on local streets to and from a school less than 3 miles away to a 30-minute ride on busy roads and an interstate highway to a school almost 15 miles away. Last year he rode in a school “bus” that was actually a big white van, tall and with some substance. This year, because he is out-of-district and is the only student traveling from our town to that particular far-flung elementary school, he rides solo in a minivan. And not even a regular size minivan, but one that I’d call a submini, seemingly shorter and less substantial than even a regular Odyssey or Sienna.

We had a choice between several programs for Davey’s kindergarten. The runner-up was at a school in a neighboring district that is less than a mile from our house. Even before today I have second-guessed our choice, despite his program and school seemingly to be an excellent fit so far. I just hate the idea of him traveling so far every day, on a highway, in a little van driven by a man who certainly seems nice and competent but whom I really don’t know. I can’t even think about ice and snow yet. And I can’t think about highway entrance ramps and speeding tractor-trailers at all.

And oh, these kids. They are so vulnerable. Davey can’t talk, so I have to find an extra scoop of faith in my heart to even put him on the van in first place. And to think of him frightened or injured and me not being there… I just can’t imagine….

Dammit. I need to go stand in the shower again for a while.

Please keep these families in your hearts.