School bus delivers reminder to slow down

Memorial Day weekend has just happened. This morning I watched a student — hidden under a black hoodie in the gentle rain — cross the highway to wait for his school bus. I could hear it coming — its bright yellow defiant beneath a brooding sky. A half-dozen vehicles, maybe on their way back to work or to appointments, stacked up behind the bus.

What conversations were taking place in their heads? Frustration? Impatience? I got behind a bus one afternoon not long ago heading home with its cargo of elementary school kids. At first, I felt the familiar: “Oh no; tuck behind this for who knows how long.” But that changed as I watched, one by one, children unload to a waiting parent—or running up a private drive, backpack bouncing — maybe to someone eager to hear about their day.

Some places had dogs barking a greeting. One mother swept her child in her arms. It all brought back memories of the rumbling yellow bus in Alaska when our kids were school-age. Time has evaporated. My husband turned 75 years old last week — those three daughters and a son long grown with children, even grandchildren of their own.

One of our grands is marrying this weekend. Family is flying from Florida and Alaska and also from Kentucky and Minnesota. We have never been together like we will be in just a few days. We spread out like the sea, but Saturday and Sunday we find our shore.

Stuck behind that school bus — or maybe invited to slow and remember — I thought of all that these parents had yet to live through with their young ones. Sporting events, concerts and graduations. Beyond that, weddings and births and careers and moves. Our family has suffered divorce and illness.

Mine and Terry's wedding song held a line: “Before the rising sun, we fly, So many roads to choose, We'll start out walking and learn to run, And yes, we've just begun.” That's how it happened. We chose Alaska — and watching for the yellow school bus.

Would I, could I, do it all again? Never. Life isn't a reel. An old hymn, “Great Is Thy Faithfulness,” says: “Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow, Blessings all mine and ten thousand beside.” He and I opened life day by day.

Terry's 75 years equates to 27,393 days — I'm right behind him on Sunday, less 365. That's an enormous collection. The faithfulness of God has been, and is, our strength and hope.

I am only asked to live this life in its seasons, once. I am, in my Book, encouraged to live it willingly, thankfully, fruitfully. I don't always make it but it's in my mind.

Following the trusty yellow school bus and the future it holds, and the memories, is nothing to grumble about. It is an iconic traveling billboard with windows for seeing out and seeing in. Its lights flash, “Time rolls by on these wheels. Keep it precious.”

Carol Shirk Knapp is the author of the “Preacher’s Kid” column.