The much-talked-about annual fifth grade outdoor education camp was coming up, and for weeks Paige had told me she did not want to go.
I don’t know if it has been the pandemic or just her personality, but these days she rarely ever wants to leave home.
For weeks, every night as I put her to bed she had needed to discuss some new concern she had.
What if she didn’t know how to work the showers?
What if she had trouble sleeping? (I know she hates when she has to sleep in extra clothes)
What if she got sick?
What if she missed me too bad?
What if there was an emergency?
What then?
I sent her off to sleep every night with the reminder that she would be well cared for there,
was about to make lifelong memories,
and – best news yet (At least for me and her)
when they had asked for chaperone volunteers,
I had grinned and volunteered her dad.
Justin is well-accustomed to me volunteering him to go on class trips as a school chaperone.
I view it as a great chance for bonding time, and a quiet house for me,
with the added bonus of just a tiny dash of watching him squirm.
Having already volunteered him to dress up for an entire weekend in early Russian Settler clothes and camp in an old drafty settler’s fort four years ago with Paige’s two older sisters,
this really couldn’t be any worse.
He had already experienced bedding down with a rat roommate on a cold wood floor, with nothing but an itchy second-hand wig between them.
So, on Tuesday, off they went.
I noticed a sea of other unsure faces as I dropped them off.
There are so many inward battles when you’re in fifth grade,
and only a few have to do with physically being at the school.
They would be traveling three hours from home to camp on the California coast.
The weather report showed rain every single day, even one lightning bolt,
and I worried about how they’d fare with 75 kids, who were used to comfy couches and video games, hiking in a downpour.
I wondered which kids’ parents had forgotten to read the note that said they would need a lunch.
I wondered if other parents had checked their kids’ list three times to make sure that they had everything on it,
and which kids already knew they wouldn’t miss home.
As they loaded in cars, I heard one girl climbing into ours shriek,
“I’ve already had SO MUCH SUGAR!”
I smiled apologetically at Justin, who suddenly looked unsure of everything, and went to inquire why there was only one barf bag passed out for each car.
I patted him upon his return and reminded him to drive safe no matter what.
These were people’s precious treasures, hyper or not, and he needed to remember that as he took the coastal corners.
They pulled out that day as I waved from the curb, and for three days afterwards I was home, anxiously awaiting their stories and all their news.
It was nice having the house stay immaculately clean all those days, but I would always trade a wiped-down counter for the sight and sounds of them.
On Friday they came back looking tired, but positively changed.
(Although Paige’s brand-new socks I’d bought for the trip could almost stand up and walk on their own)
She spent the next hours talking non-stop about all the facts about nature she had learned.
I almost couldn’t hear what she was saying, though, for my own thoughts as I watched her about how all of this was coming from a girl who, originally, said she did not want to go.
It wasn’t until later in the quiet of the night, as we curled up on the couch together to really catch up, that Justin and I had a minute to talk about the way the trip had really gone.
He told me which boys refused to listen to him,
and which kids seemed to spend a lot of time alone.
He told me which kids he really grew to like, and which of the parents he did not.
He said that out of all the sights that he had seen, though, and out of all the things that he had learned, the most impressive thing he saw happened one night as he and the boys he was chaperoning were climbing into bed, getting ready for lights out,
and it had nothing to do with the sea, or the tides, or the sun.
He told me that late one night, the voice of the kids’ teacher, Mrs. G, had suddenly called from outside the tent cabin asking if it was alright for her to come in.
This was her final outdoor education adventure.
She is set to retire at the end of this year after more than 30 of them.
She entered the cabin with her warm, familiar smile, and Justin knew immediately what she was doing:
Her one last look,
Her one last goodnight.
She said she was just wondering if anyone maybe needed a goodnight hug.
Then after a multitude of raised hands – she had quietly given several of them.
Thirty years of love that might not always feel returned,
but may matter more than she knows to just one.
As she left, she had stopped, and before exiting had turned back around to gaze at them all tucked in for a minute before saying one last
“You know what? I really love all of you” to them.
Justin wiped tears as he recalled it,
and commented on, to a kid hours from home, what that small act of kindness could have meant, having her there, standing in the gap for them.
You never know what kid got sent to camp without enough warmth packed;
Physical or emotional.
How many kids in 30 years have needed that kind of warm smile waiting at the drop-off circle there to greet them?
How many kids never have someone outside their door asking if they can come in,
and if they maybe were needing a hug,
or how many never really get told that someone standing between the cold night and them is a person that truly loves them?
It touched Justin so much.
I think even the little boy inside of him was needing this woman at the tent flap.
Seeing him cry made me cry, too.
(We really are quite a pair)
After all, the hugs and last minute “I love you”s-
They are the memories that really last in the end.
Not the clean socks, or spotless houses when no one is home to mess it all up.
Not the long nights with a million questions, and concerns that need soothing again, and again, and again.
Not the nights spent on a cold floor,
or the musty old wigs we have to wear.
It’s the moments at the tent flaps,
Our “one last look”s,
That is what we all will hold tightest from it.
So here’s to the teachers, in a sometimes thankless job, showing up year after year who will change a child’s life with their one last hug.
Here’s to the parents who show up even when they’re unsure, and brave all the curvy roads, even feeling underprepared.
Here’s to the yearning in all of us to have someone that shows up at the door,
and to every person outside the door, too.
To every kid, parent, and person who needs assurance, or one last goodnight.
My Mother Heart says,
“I really love all of you.”
I will forever think about that powerful gift of showing up in the dark with a true Mother’s Love.
It really doesn’t even have to come from a mother at all.
It can be any of us.
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
