I have been reading Charlotte's Web to Rivers at night for the past couple of weeks. It is actually our first chapter book to read together, and it has been such a special time as she recalls things from the days before and gets excited to read that night. The fifteenth chapter is entitled "The Crickets." It made me choke up thinking of her going to school and about summer drawing to a close:
"The crickets sang in the grasses. They sang the song of summer's ending, a sad, monotonous song. 'Summer is over and gone,' they sang. 'Over and gone, over and gone...'
The crickets felt it was their duty to warn everybody that summertime cannot last forever. Even on the most beautiful days in the whole year--the days when summer is changing into fall--the crickets spread the rumor of sadness and change.
Everybody heard the song of the crickets. Avery and Fern Arable heard it as they walked the dusty road. They knew that school would soon begin again. The young geese heard it and knew that they would never be little goslings again...Mrs. Zuckerman, at work in the kitchen, heard the crickets, and a sadness came over her, too. 'Another summer gone,' she sighed...
'Summer is over and gone,' repeated the crickets...'Good-bye, summer, good-bye, good-bye!'"
I have never felt so nostalgic about summer's end as I do now. Usually, I am looking forward to cooler days and the events of the fall. I have always loved the idea of school. The bright red apples. The yellow school buses. The "bouquet of sharpened pencils." Now it will be a time when I have to let one of my children go for more of the day than I wish, yet I know...this is the right thing. God has brought us to this day, and we are so blessed! So blessed to have a child that I adore being around. So blessed that she is WALKING into school. So I am choosing to thank God for the days ahead, and I am praying that my child will be as much a blessing to others as she has been and is to me.
