A Parting Glance...or not

So the boy and his comrades from the fifth grade at the fancy private school left for Colonial Williamsburg on Saturday morning.  It's always fun to watch other folks family dynamics.  Times like these I also see so clearly how different my son is.   One young man in the class has real issues being away  from home. As I take pics of Spen2 and his buddies for Facebook, this young lad's parental units are talking him in off the ledge.  Consoling him, cajoling him, telling him he was going to have fun, loving all up on the child. I asked Spen2 what was wrong with the kid.  Spen2's reply "Oh he's just like that, he gets real home sick."  Then Spen2 just goes right on talking to his boys like nothing has happened.   His classmate is coming apart at the seams, and no one is paying any attention to it.   That's a fancy private school for ya.  All that tolerance and diversity of thought.   Ha!  Who besides me is Old School???  That poor kid would have been dead meat at my elementary school!  I went to a private school too, it just wasn't fancy.  My Lord, we would have let that boy HAVE IT!   He would be a thirty year old man still having nightmares about the abuse he endured at the hands of his classmates in Virginia!  I make  mention to another parent that Spen2 has never been like that!  When I dropped him off at preschool on the first day he said good bye, hugged me and walked away.  A few minutes later he saw me hovering and said out of his mouth "Why are you still here?  You have to leave."

As the group departs, there are goodbyes all around.  The kids follow their teachers towards the security checkpoint.  I feel badly walking away without waiting for them to get through the security checkpoint and be out of view.... In case he happens to look back.... Yeah right.   So there I stand, with the parents of the regular kids as, one by one, their kids turned around just to make sure they weren't completely alone.  All of them from the traumatized kid to the fifth grade 'horn dog' eventually turned around

Side note:  the 'horn dogs' mother went running down the aisleway to give him a final hug when he turned around-- there is a therapist in that kid's not too distant future.

How does the story end? You think the boy turned and offered me an acknowledgement, a crooked smile, threw me deuces, somehing sweet and wry..... Heck no!  He walked through that security check point and never looked back.  I wouldn't have it any other way!   A future NBA, MLB, governor, president, pope, has sometimes got to walk alone....so this is good practice for him.:-)