Today I’m happy to have “Soulkeepers” author, G.P. Ching on Coffee and a Keyboard.

V.R.:  Tell me a little about how you got started writing.

My favorite thing in the world has always been writing. Storytelling
came naturally to me. When I went to college I tested out of the
writing class requirements and although I was interested in studying
creative writing at the college level, I was easily persuaded to major
in Accounting. I did well and my first job was with a major insurance
company, but, somehow, despite passing the CPA, I never worked in
an accounting position. Very quickly I was moved into a planning and
strategy role where my talent for storytelling was used to sell new
projects to the organization. Then in 2006, after rising to a senior
management position, I left the organization to stay home with my
kids. I wrote the first version of The Soulkeepers my first summer off
in a spiral notebook while my children where in swimming lessons.

V.R. You are very active in the #fridayflash community, tell me about
that.

The #fridayflash community is very important to me. So much so that
they are noted on my acknowledgment page. Writing flash fiction
gave me practice in finding the core of a story. By reading and writing
weekly, I strengthened my writing muscle and learned what worked
with readers and what didn’t. I grew a readership, made friends, and
learned how to use Twitter. But most importantly, I gained confidence
that I was a “real” writer and that people all over the world wanted to
read my work.

V.R. Your debut novel, “Soulkeepers” is out now. Tell me how that came
about.

To truly understand how the Soulkeepers came to be, first you have
to know a little of my history. I’ve never been what you might call
a “religious” person. I was raised Catholic and my family practiced
in the traditional way. I was always the one who bucked the
system. Why couldn’t we eat meat on Friday? Why did I have to
go to confession? etc. As an adult, I became Lutheran after my first
marriage ended in divorce, but I sort of didn’t practice anything for
a long time and I read about all different world religions during this
period.

Then, someone invited me to this Bible study that was historically
focused. It’s the type of thing you might have taken in college–a very
intellectual look at the Bible. We were reading about Adam & Eve, and
it dawned on me how weird it was that the snake was in the garden.

It was supposed to be the safest place in the universe, protected by
God, but evil was right there. And all at once, I had this realization
that the people of the world who had faith did not have it because
everything that they believed made perfect logical sense. They had
faith because they’d decided at some point that there was an ultimate
force for good in the universe and they wanted to be a part of it.
Some personal experience had brought them to a connection with a
higher power and this connection was uniquely individual.

My father-in-law was an atheist and we’d stay up late into the night
talking about why he believed what he did and why I believed what I
did. He’d pose questions to me about the imperfections of the world
and how I might explain them.

And just like that, Jacob was in my head, an atheist trying to process
why his world was imperfect. Jacob struggles with imperfections in
self, family, community, and ultimately his God. That was the seed
that bloomed into the Soulkeepers.

V.R. Anything else you want to mention?

I queried agents on and off about The Soulkeepers over the course
of a year. I’d taken the manuscript to workshops and had more beta
readers than I have fingers. I’d done my homework and knew the
manuscript was brilliant. While I had requests for partials and fulls,
ultimately it was rejected. But the book is doing well, is profitable,
and has earned eleven five star reviews on Goodreads so far. If you
are passionate about your novel and know that it is worthy of your
readers, never give up.

G.P.’s novel, “Soulkeepers” is available at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble and Smashwords. For more information visit her website, So, Write.You can also read some of her amazing #fridayflash and learn more about her forthcoming novels for the “Soulkeepers” series.

I’d like to thank Ray Bradbury and his book “Zen in the Art of Writing” for giving me the answer to the last day of the challenge. I’d been fretting about this day for the entire challenge and the stinking answer had been right there, literally in front of my face the entire time. How zen is that?

This is a book that I always keep close. Even if you’re not a big fan of Ray Bradbury’s work (I am), this is an incredibly inspirational book. In it, Bradbury mostly talks about his experiences in writing, but also gives some great advice on  how to stoke your creativity, take care of your muse and to me, most importantly, how to really let go and just enjoy the process. Because frankly, if it’s not enjoyable, why bother?

Anybody out there read it? Any other Bradbury fans in the house? What’s your favorite? I’m partial to “I Sing the Body Electric” and “Something Wicked this Way Comes.”

Well everybody, I’ve really enjoyed this challenge and have LOVED meeting so many new and talented people. I can’t wait to see how you continue with your blogs outside of the challenge.

I’ll be back on Monday with an interview with “Soulkeepers” author G.P. Ching. You can check out her website here.

Here we are at Day 6 of the A-Z Blog Challenge, and today’s topic is #fridayflash. In case you’re not familiar, #fridayflash is a weekly challenge that puts writers in their chairs and has them bang out a piece of Flash Fiction. Then, you can put it up on your blog, and register it here. Then you go to Twitter and post your story using the hash tag #fridayflash. Then prepare to be overwhelmed.

I got involved in #fridayflash about a year ago after I’d seen a bunch of my blogging friends participating. I was amazed at the stories they could turn out every week. They were great! Generally, I’m not a short story writer, but they seemed to have so much fun doing it, I thought I’d give it a try. I wrote my first story “Dandelions” and posted it. The response was truly wonderful. The #fridayflash community is very supportive and it’s a blast on Fridays to go around and read everybody else’s story and see the comments come in for your own. I admit, I’m not the most consistent participant, as my muse is a fickle one, but even the times I have participated, it has helped me grow as a writer and give me confidence as a writer.

In fact, I expanded my first story and submitted it to Writer’s Digest last year and got an Honorable Mention! So, if you’re a writer, #fridayflash is a great way to create some work that you can send out. Even if you don’t consider yourself a writer, but you like to dabble every now and again, give it a shot! You never know what can happen.

To read some of the stories I’ve written for #fridayflash, click here.

To read all the entries every week (there’s a great variety, please check them out) click here to go to the #fridayflash archives.

They call Orlando, Florida “The City Beautiful,” but there’s nothing beautiful about waking up at a bus stop at 4 A.M. not knowing how you got there and clutching a grocery bag containing nothing other than eight jars of tikka masala sauce.

Eight jars? Why eight? Hell, why tikka masala? I mean, I like Indian food, but what the hell? That’s all that’s in the bag. No meat or veggies of any kind. No naan. Just the sauce. And the bag is one of those generic white plastic “thank you” bags. Not a Publix bag or even Walgreens. What…the…hell?

Even at 4 A.M. it’s hot in this freaking city. Sun’s not up and it’s probably already 80 degrees in August.

When most people think or hear “Orlando” they only think of one thing. Disney. Mickey Mouse in all his splendor. Minnie, Goofy, Pluto, all those guys. I can’t really knock it though, since I’m one of the elite. That’s right, I’m a Disney Cast Member. And it’s not too bad. I take Mickey around to his different locations where he gives autographs and hugs to kids and even grownups. Not to sound sappy, but seeing little kids light up at the sight of that overgrown Mouse doesn’t get old. They love him and are oblivious to how much their parents scrimped and saved to get into the park, or what a hassle it was to travel from every part of the world to get here. All they know is that they are there, at Disney and for them it really is the most magical place on earth. Ah, for life to be that simple.

Anyway, that’s what people think Orlando is. And it is. But this grungy bus stop on E. Colonial Drive is just as much Orlando as Disney World or Epcot and far less magical. Not the best place for a girl to be alone in the dark.

But how on earth did I get here?

I remember little bits of things. Like strobe light memories. I went to a friend’s house. We watched a movie, some chick flick. I don’t know. I wasn’t paying much attention.  Then there was a bright light. Like when somebody pulls into your driveway and their high beams are aimed into your living room window. That’s when things get fuzzy. I remember feeling like something was wrong, but I don’t know specifically why. I looked at the clock on my cell phone and it read 12:00am before the screen just blanked out.

My pulse started racing as I looked over at my friend. She was asleep and I was starting to feel drowsy too. I stood up, tried to fight the oncoming darkness, but I couldn’t. My legs went all rubbery and I collapsed, hitting my head on the coffee table as I went down.

The next thing I remember is knowing I was lying down on something hard, like the floor. There were muffled sounds and strange looking people standing over me. Their features were odd, like they were wearing masks. One wore Mickey Mouse ears, the other wore a Snow White dress. There was a bright light behind them, like an overhead lamp or something, so I couldn’t tell where we were.

“We want to go to Disney World.”

“It’s closed,” I mumbled.

The two, people, although I suspect they weren’t human, conferred with each other.

“We don’t care. We want to go.” Their English was good, but their accents were strange and unrecognizable to my foggy mind.

“You can’t. It’s closed. Who are you?”

“We have come a long way and we demand to meet Mickey! We know that you work for him. You will take us to him.” The one in the Snow White dress leaned over and whispered into the other’s ear. “Yes, and we also want to meet Jack Sparrow.”

My vision grew less and less blurry and I could see that whatever these things were, they were wearing masks. When they spoke, their mouths didn’t move the right way, and their expressionless faces didn’t match the apparent anger they held at my not taking them to Mickey Mouse.

“Look Jack Sparrow isn’t a real person, and Mickey Mouse is just a guy in a suit. I’m not taking you to freakin’ Disney World!”

They looked at each other. They whispered something I couldn’t understand, in a language I couldn’t for the life of me place. Then they turned back to me.

“A guy in a suit?” the one with the ears asked.

“Yes.”

They whispered to each other again then said, “Thank you for the truth,” before everything went blank again.

Which brings me to this bus stop and my lifetime supply of tikka masala sauce. I’m guessing one of two things happened. I was abducted by aliens who had a burning desire to go to Disney, or I dreamed the whole thing and somehow slept walked to the bus stop. The latter, oddly enough, is the less likely scenario, since I’ve never slept walked in my life and I had driven to my friend’s house, not taken the bus.

Whatever happened, luckily, I don’t seem to be hurt, and I just got a text from my friend saying she’s sorry she fell asleep and hopes I made it home ok. So I guess she’s ok, too. Good news.

I’ll just chalk all this up to just another day in The City Beautiful. So whether I was abducted by aliens or I slept walk, it still doesn’t explain the tikka masala.

Alas, no #fridayflash this week, but that’s ok. I’ve been prepping myself for the start of my new writing life, starting Monday. I’m very excited and am grateful for your help. And for those that have joined the gentle butt kicking fest, (Karen, I’m looking at you) this’ll be great. Let’s do this!

Ok, time to hop off my overly optimistic happy box there before I make myself sick or burp a rainbow or something. No, but really, looking forward to getting stuff done. That will be a great thing.

So, I’ve seen other people asking about NaNoWriMo, the crazy psycho month long novel writing fest in November. I did it once a few years ago. I didn’t get to the 50,000 words, but I made good progress on what I was working on. It wasn’t even something I think I’d ever want published, but it was a nice feeling to just get up and write and make progress on a project. Have you ever done the NaNoWriMo? Are you going to this year?

I am considering it, because I have something in mind, and it would be nice to get the first draft done. But considering it took me two years to do the first draft of “Shaping Fate” I just don’t know if I operate on that fast track. I still might give it a go though, just for the sake of the first draft. I’m also a different writer than I was during the first draft of “Shaping Fate” so it might be a good experience. We’ll see.

Anyway, I hope you have a great weekend and I’ll leave you with this link from Penguin Books, UK. Seems that they are accepting unsolicited submissions until the end of October. Anybody hear about this or going to submit?  Click here for the link.

The coffee washed his mouth with a sour taste. Again. Ever since Eric had moved it seemed like he couldn’t get the coffee right anymore. Nothing tasted quite right anymore. Maybe it was the change in altitude or maybe he was coming down with something.

He shrugged it off and peered at the Rocky Mountains which he could see from his new apartment. They were truly a sight to behold. The Blue Ridge Mountains back east, though older, didn’t hold the majesty of the Rockies. He took another sip of coffee and almost spit it out. How could he keep getting it wrong? Sugar, cream, none of it helped. He poured it down the drain.

“Hey bro,” his brother Anthony was visiting.

Eric nodded. “Hey, don’t drink the coffee, it’s terrible. Maybe it’s bad or something.”

Anthony smiled ruefully. He’d done that a lot in the couple of days he’d been here. Eric asked him what was wrong repeatedly, but never got a clear answer. Ever since the move nothing was clear anymore. Maybe he just hadn’t fully recovered from the move yet. It’d take a while to fall back into a routine. The move itself had been stressful and driving over 1700 miles from West Virginia had been nearly more than Eric could handle. The road plays funny tricks on a person’s mind when they’re on it for that long. He thought more than once that truckers were a special kind of person to be able to do that for a living. No way he could.

“You sleep OK?” Eric asked his brother.

Anthony nodded.

“Wanna go to Ihop?”

He snorted and shook his head.

“Coffee Shack?”

“No, Eric. I’ll be OK without coffee.”

“OK, have it your way.”

Anthony leaned against the counter and folded his arms over his chest. “Eric, you can’t stay here forever. You know that right?”

“Oh God here we go again. Look, I needed a change, OK? I couldn’t just stay in Podunk West Virginia forever. I’m glad that’s worked for you, but I wanted to try something different. Why don’t you understand that?”

“I do.” He raked his fingers through his hair and heaved a deep breath. “I understand that it’s beautiful here, that it’s exactly what you want, but you can’t stay. It’s not right.”

“I just got here, Anthony! And now you want me to leave? Do you know how hard I worked to get here? Not to mention driving almost straight through. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, but I’m here, and I’m staying!”

Eric hadn’t wanted to continue the argument he and his brother had started last night, and he wasn’t sure why Anthony had wanted to either, but here they were. It started with Anthony bringing up Jen, his girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend. Also known as a huge part of the reason Eric had wanted to leave in the first place. They were going to get married, but she had backed out at the last minute. Anthony was talking about people back home and said that Jen had a hard time driving by the house. She, of all people, had a hard time driving by the house. After what she’d done? It wasn’t hard for her to break his heart, and decide she didn’t want to marry him, but it was hard for her to drive by the house? Unbelievable.

The mountains really were stunning. They soothed Eric, so when he started again, he was more calm.

“Look, Anthony, I don’t want to fight, OK? This is just going to take some adjustment, for everybody. But I just can’t leave. Maybe once I’m more settled, I could come visit? Maybe for the holidays or something?”

Anthony shook his head. “Absolutely not.”

“I don’t get it. If everybody misses me so damn much, then a visit would be good, right?”

Anthony just stared at Eric. There was a sadness to his eyes that Eric had never seen before and didn’t like seeing now.

“I didn’t want to have to do this, Eric. I thought you would have understood by now. Everybody would love to see you again, but you can’t go back.”

“Understand what?” This was one of those moments again, like so many he’d had since he’d been here. Unclear. Like something was just out of reach. Like the coffee, and the feeling of still being unsettled. But that would all pass. It had to, right?

Anthony went to his duffel bag and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. He held it in both of his hands as if deciding whether he wanted to hand it over or not. Eric didn’t give him the chance to make up his mind. He snatched the paper from Anthony and unfolded it.

It was a picture of Eric and two dates beneath it with the words, “In Loving Memory.” The air seemed to leave the room. Anthony, the apartment, everything fell away and Eric stood in a white void. The second date was a month ago. But that was impossible. That was before he’d gotten to Colorado. When he was still driving.

Like stepping into the sun after being in a dark room, everything made sense. Harsh, painful sense. The dream he had every night. The car wreck. The grim faces. Anthony telling him he couldn’t go home and he couldn’t stay.

The paper slipped from his hands and disappeared into the void. Eric closed his eyes and imagined the mountains again. He let the feeling of peace and serenity they brought wash over him and take him in. He was home now.

The first bullet ripped through his gut. The second and third through his chest. Everything halted to slow motion as he collapsed to the beige linolium floor. The kid who shot him, stunned by his own actions, left the money on the counter and fled. The old lady who owned the store dialed 911.

At first, the pain he felt wasn’t from the gunshots, but from the thought that he’d failed. He never found her this time. This dance they did, lifetime after lifetime…finding each other, only to realize again that their blessing was also a curse.

His pulse sounded in his ears, as blood flowed from him.

The old woman, still clutching the phone to her ear stood over him. Her free hand pressed a hand towel to his chest. “Don’t worry, hon. They’re on the way. You’re going to be fine.” Into the phone she said, “How much longer?”

There was no mistaking the fear in her eyes. The one in the stomach might not have been enough to claim him, but the two in the chest… Breathing was like swimming through syrup. He tried to say something to the lady, to thank her, but nothing came out except a wet, choked gurgle. The lady cringed and went to the front window to watch for the ambulance.

He gazed at the flourescent lights on the ceiling. Hours, days, lifetimes blended together in a miasma of love and sorrow.

From his cloud of memory, he pulled their meeting on boat bound for the Americas. They were children, seven and eight years old, one Irish and one Italian. They couldn’t speak each other’s languages, but there was still a connection. Once the landed in the New World, that connection was broken.

In another life, she was a starlet that he’d loved from afar for years. He sent her letters and tried to get near her at public events. He knew if she could just see him, that she’d know that he was the one and they could finally be together. But after several years of letters and eventually phone calls, he was arrested for stalking and put in jail. She’d never shown up to any of the court dates, never had seen his face, had never guessed that it was him.

Two centuries ago, she, the blushing bride on her wedding day, he, the innkeeper’s son, shared a passionate kiss in the kitchen. The angry and jealous groom witnessed this, but didn’t tip his hand until later, when he strangled his new bride.

Another life as a circus ringleader, and she as a trapeze artist. Yet another with him as an important businessman, and she, a woman of ill-repute. Always, some circumstance brought them together and simultaneously tore them apart. After each lifetime, their memories of each other swirled in their minds, like remembered dreams. Their awareness that there was a missing piece of themselves out there, searching, germinated and grew stronger as time marched on, but it didn’t make finding each other any faster or easier.

And now, Daniel, a teacher, bleeding to death while waiting for an ambulance, because some kid decided to knock over a convenience store. And she? He didn’t know.

“They’re here!” The lady cried as three EMTs in navy blue jumpsuits wheeled in a gurney. There was such hope in the woman’s voice, but the world was already fading to gray, sounds blurred into one long drone, everything smudged together like chalk drawings in the rain.

Daniel closed his eyes. He felt the cold metal of the scissors as one of the EMTs cut his shirt away. He heard the snap of a rubber gloves and the rip of paper packets that held various bandages. Then he heard a voice, “Sir? Sir, can you hear me? Open your eyes if you can hear me.”

He opened one eye, then the other.

“Good,” she said. We’re going to get you to the hospital, ok?”

He noticed she didn’t say he was going to be fine. Just that he would get to the hospital.

“My name’s Emily. What’s your name?”

He opened his mouth, but just like before, nothing came out but a spurt of blood.

“That’s all right, sir. Just take it easy. We’re going to lift you onto the gurney, ok?”

He nodded.

Emily squatted near his head and slipped her hands under his shoulders. “Ready? One, two, three.”

Their eyes locked. Daniel’s heart accelerated, his breath quickened.

She looked down at him, her eyes reflecting the feeling he had inside of him. The best and worst moment of his life, wrapped into one.

“Let’s go!” she shouted.

They hustled Daniel into the ambulance. The two other EMTs climbed into the cab, leaving Emily to care for the patient in the back.

“You’re going to be fine,” she said as she slid a needle into his arm, and pressed down on his wounds to stop the bleeding. He tried to say something to her, but she slid an oxygen mask over his face. “Just rest. You’ll be fine. You have to be.”

Daniel scanned the monitor he was plugged into. He didn’t know much about medicine, but he knew enough to understand that the jagged, irregular green line wasn’t good. He wanted to live, but that wouldn’t be enough. The world around him started to fade away.

He heard a long unending beep and Emily’s panicked voice in his ear. “Stay with me! Dammit, you can’t die!”

Daniel tried to move his hands to her face, but he couldn’t. Then, he was looking down at them. Emily’s blond ponytail coming undone, her tears streaking her face as she compressed his chest and breathed into his mouth. A kiss he would never taste.

As the ambulance arrived at the hospital, Emily closed Daniel’s eyes and whispered, “Next time, my love. Next time.”

You’ve heard the saying, “Wow, if these walls could talk?” Well, they can. So do the floors, ceilings and appliances. You just have to be “lucky” enough to be somebody that can hear them.

Lucy just moved to a new place. As anybody who has moved knows, moving sucks. But for Lucy, moving is even worse. She’d been living in a brand new apartment development for a couple of years and it was great. There hadn’t been that much time for the walls to absorb the stories and energy of any previous inhabitants. Although she did avoid one corner of the highrise due to the fact that one of the workers had fallen and died there during construction.

This little tidbit manifested itself as a feeling of panic anytime she walked past. For an instant she could even see the man plummeting. Fortunately for Lucy, she figured this out the first week in the new apartment and was careful to avoid it.

The new place however, was not so free of “displaced energy,” as Lucy liked to call it, but she didn’t have too many options. Her job had moved. She didn’t like to drive due to the frequent and sudden panic attacks she’d get while driving on any given road. Most roads have had an accident on them, even minor, and when your collecting impressions and emotions from those accidents and from any surrounding buildings, driving becomes difficult. Lucy was in an accident herself once due to this, so she decided it was safer to walk.

Her office’s new location was in the beautiful Olde Town section of the city. Hundred year old buildings, a quaint cobblestone street, multitudes of historic landmarks, people dressed as colonials giving tours on the weekends. To anybody else, it would be wonderful. To her, it felt more like being committed to an insane asylum.

Just walking through the streets made her feel schizophrenic. Every surface of that city had layers and layers of displaced energy. Not all of it bad of course. There was a particularly scenic part, where many people had chosen to propose to their beloved, the park spoke of happy children playing, families spending time together during the warmer months. But then there are the alleys that send images of unspeakable horrors, the sanitarium that was converted into an upscale hotel. Now, that was a strange combination of images.

Usually, she could block some of it. The first few times she walked to work, before she knew what to expect, were almost crippling. By the time she arrived at the office, disheveled and sweaty from running for several blocks, she almost felt like packing it in for the day. But after a few weeks, things got better. She could avoid the rough areas and just listen to her iPod or something to distract her. This strategy of avoidance caused her to take a most indirect route to work, but she tried to see it more as an opportunity to get more exercise, rather than walking all over the city like a crazy person. Sometimes, it was all about what kind of spin you put on it.

Her new apartment however, was a different story. There was no avoiding that and there was only so much TV she could watch and music she could listen to while at home. Reading wasn’t much of an option, because trying to read while absorbing all the messages and energy around her was too distracting. The scary part was that this apartment was the least “talkative” out of the twenty or so she’d looked at. Her realtor had even refused to show her any more. Lucy understood. She knew it wasn’t fun for her realtor to be showing apartment after apartment to this seemingly neurotic woman. In every place then went in, Lucy would not ask about appliances or about pet policies, but rather, “Do you know if anybody was killed here?” Not an unheard question in the world of realty, but not as prominent an issue as Lucy made it out to be.

The place she picked was small, and the newest out of all of them and luckily, the same family had been there for almost fifteen years. Strange for an apartment, but good for Lucy. At least it was the same type energy, instead of layers of different mismatched energy, like the layers of paint that coated the place. She could get used to the bedroom flashing images of the somewhat silly sex acts that went on in it back in the day, and sitting in the room that eventually became the baby’s room was mostly pleasant. The thing about her new apartment wasn’t her apartment. It was one of the surrounding ones, but she couldn’t be sure which one. Something bad had happened, several bad things, she was sure, but she couldn’t get a good picture of it, since she wasn’t in the space.

One evening, there was a knock at the door. She almost didn’t answer it, but knew if she was to avoid becoming a complete agoraphobic that she had to push herself beyond her comfort zone. With a deep breath, she opened the door. A man stood there. Not a particularly menacing man in any way, but the tight feeling in Lucy’s throat told her she needed to avoid him. Something was radiating from him, something violent and evil.

“Hi, I’m Tom. I’m the maintenance man. I know you just moved in so I just wanted to introduce myself and see if you needed anything?”

She couldn’t speak so she just shook her head. Images of women being strangled and dumped into the crawlspace under his apartment assaulted her.

“Well, alright then, if you change your mind, I live in the basement apartment, right below you.”

The next morning, she called her realtor. “I know you’re going to hate me, but could we look at some different apartments?”

I had several flashes of my daughter’s future this morning as she walked down the stairs. She was going to the mall with her friends, then going to prom, then graduating and following her dreams. But then she returned to the little smiley six year old that she is. Care-free and singing to herself a song she learned in school.

She slid on her Little Miss Sunshine backpack and I walked with her to the bus stop. Back in September it was raining, but she shone so vividly with her pink umbrella and dazzling smile. Kindergarten. A new adventure. So much potential, so much anticipation.

Today is the last day. It’s bright and sunny out. There’s no umbrella but the smile is still there. When she started the journey, she could read a few words, but now, she reads full chapters.

She started the year with all of her baby teeth, and now she has lost six of them in total. The four bottom ones are growing in, the top two still missing.

She’s made friends, found new interests and started to truly become her own person, separate from her father and me. It’s sad and beautiful all at the same time, but mostly beautiful. I love when she uses a new word or shares with me a new bit of knowledge she’s gained.

The bus pulls up. In September I worried so much. Would the other kids pick on her? Would she pay attention in class? Would the teachers like her? Would she like them? I cried on the walk back from the bus stop, the rain masking my tears.

Today, the same flutter rumbles in my belly as the yellow and red lights blink on the bus.  I wave at the bus driver when she opens the door and she waves back. We’ve done this all school year. Sort of an unspoken agreement that she’ll get her safely to and from school and she has.

The bus pulls away and the tears well again. Not for any fear or concern, but that universal sense of pride that all parents feel when their child completes their first year of school.