DAD ’S PL A C E by Brett Buckner First Day


I don’t cry well. It’s not necessarily a macho, men-


don’t-cry thing. I’m just out of practice, having never cried in public. It’s the same thing with soccer. Sure I went to a couple of camps as a kid, but I couldn’t score a goal today if my life depended on it. When I do feel that strange, damp


sensation around my eyeballs, I naturally mask it, usually by pretending to yawn or acting as though a bit of dirt or an eyelash was caught in my cornea. While walking Jellybean into her new


school, the teacher must have thought I was walking out of an insurance semi- nar for all the yawning I was doing, but in truth the tears were there, even if I refused to let them fall. It was a momen- tous day, one that My Lovely Wife and


I had crossed our fingers and toes for months in hopes that it would come to fruition. It was Jellybean’s first day in a new


school, Matthews Elementary School, where she had won a coveted spot via lot- tery in the Pre-K program. It meant leav- ing her daycare of three-plus years—not to mention its $125-a-week tuition—in the past. But that wasn’t the reason, rather it wasn’t the only reason, I was crying tears of joy. How is it possible to think of a 4-year-


old as being all grown up? After all, she still sleeps on a Winnie the Pooh pillow, has no less than three stuffed animals named “Gosh” and is known to carry a Dora the Explorer purse crammed with the most random little-girl stuff imaginable. And yet, there she was. In a flash, I see


her graduating from high school, then college. I could envision her walking down the aisle at her wedding, lying in a hospital bed cradling her firstborn child and then dropping that child off for the first day of “real” school while pretending not to cry. Geez, kids really do grow up fast. But


just as I was about to wave goodbye, Jelly- bean ran back, arms outstretched, plastic jewelry jangling, begging for one last hug before starting the rest of her life. I didn’t want to let go, but the other kids were getting riled up and the teacher was giv- ing me that familiar, yet stern, warning common to the helicopter parents. Now, if only I could stop yawning.


AUGUST 2012 | Valley Parent 7


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