I had a conversation with my daughter the other day about what age you "grow-up." I told her how some people thought it was 18 years, but I thought it was more likely to be 25 years of age. Hell, my father is 62 and a baby boomer, so the likelihood of him "growing up" is rather small.
I explained that what I know now is so much more than what I "thought" I knew at 18, and even 25. We discussed the qualities of grown-ups and what makes someone "old enough to know better." I felt really good about this conversation, only because my daughter asks hard questions that a simple "Because, I said so," will not answer.
Of course, something can happen in the blink of an eye that make you change your mind and realize, you know nothing...about anything.
Princess has had some nasty cold that came out of nowhere. We thought she was able to go back to school today, however she just didn't make it. Her teacher called and asked if I would like to come get her. She has a wonderful teacher, who explained that she was hanging in there, but Princess' eyes just didn't look well. Princess' eyes are pretty much the doors to her soul, she cannot tell a lie. Her eyes will tell you everything about her.
Little Dude and I left immediately to go pick her up from school. The moment when I realized everything I thought I knew about fear, I had no clue. As soon as I walked into the office to sign her out, I was ushered into an inner office and told to sit down and be quiet. While they locked doors, turned off lights and made an announcement over the loud speakers, that they were in lock-down and it was not a drill, I sat with Little Dude absolutely helpless.
Within seconds (yes, it was timed) that school went from happy kids at lunch, to a desolate campus. All the lights were turned off, every window and door was shut and locked, and there was no noise. Little Dude doesn't like the dark, but I think he knew he shouldn't say anything, because he just sat there.
It turned out, some idiot decided to make a prank call. Instead of taking precious minutes to decide whether it was a hoax or not, my daughter's school took action and decided, better safe than sorry. As I type this now, I am absolutely thrilled they did this. Even after speaking to the person who made the lock-down decision, she said, "90% of the time it's a hoax," and then left what we were both thinking, unsaid.
The fear I speak of is, is being 30 feet from your child's classroom and not being able to see or comfort her in any way. It's not being able to protect her. It's realizing that, not only you cannot protect one child, you brought your other child right into the middle of something. It's also being the parents, outside the gates who have no idea what is going on, when police cars are surrounding your child's school.
I'm very glad that nothing happened. I'm very glad that the school I put a lot of trust in to help raise my child, reacted the way they did.
There are many thoughts racing through my head right now as the left-over adrenalin is coursing through my body. The conversation about being "grown-up" happens to be one of them. At that moment when fear for my kids hit me, I realized I still don't know as much as I think I do.
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