In March 2020, our kids left school for spring break–like many- and never went back to complete their year. Oliver was 6 and in grade 1 and thriving in French Immersion and Elliott was 3 and completing his last year of part-time play school at the same school Oliver had attended. Like so many around the world, it was tough on all of us, but I felt most badly for them.

Honestly, I’m less conscious or concerned with the time I’ve lost over the last 1.5 years. I have my regrets and losses, but I’m most acutely aware of what they’ve lost. Eighteen months of difficulty and loss of a normal life out of my 40 mostly amazing years on this planet? I can deal with that. But in their brief childhoods, 18 months is a huge chunk of time.

This was really brought home the last couple of days. Sorting through the art projects and schoolwork that we’ve accrued for Oliver over the last four years of JK, SK and grade 1 & 2 almost broke me. Seeing his handwriting develop and his interests reflected in the myriad drawings as his skills have gotten better made me so appreciative of the time that he got in school, uninterrupted. Those years, plus his two years of play school, were such special years where he made friends and loved school and had his world broadened beyond just our family. His imaginative, creative and dedicated teachers came up with play-based learning projects that I never would have thought to do.

All of this makes me mourn (hard) for Elliott and what he has missed and what he is missing. For two days, he’s been carrying around his Valentine’s Day “mailbox” that I unearthed, made from a tissue box in February 2020. It still contains the Valentines from his play school friends and it breaks my heart when he talks about (still) missing play school and talking about Valentine’s Day parties that maybe he’ll have at school soon — and knowing that won’t be happening for him next year.

He never got his graduation ceremony from play school. Never got to say goodbye to the nascent friendships he was building with the kids he was just starting to know there. Then in September, he was thrown into full-day junior kindergarten with the absolute best teachers, in a class with one of his buddies on our street. Any trepidation I had was erased by how seamlessly he took to “going to Oliver’s school.” He loved kindergarten. He made friends, he learned to write his name, he talked incessantly about “popcorn words.” Every morning at drop off, he barely gave me a second glance as he raced off to join his friends.

Now this year is ending for him, just like that last year did. He went for spring break this year and never went back to school again. Never got to say goodbye to his school, his teachers and friends. And instead of saying to myself, well, at least they’ll be going back again in September, we’re pulling them out entirely and taking a giant leap into the unknown. In the many years of dreaming about taking this trip, imagining leaving after they’ve finished school for the year, I never imagined they wouldn’t be wrapping up school normally, celebrating with their friends in person. Putting a neat bow on these wonderful years at a wonderful school.

And that’s where the parental guilt comes in. These are years we will never get back, which is why we’re going — but they are also childhood years that they won’t get back either. Elliott will never have another chance to go to kindergarten and grade 1. For Oliver at least, I feel less guilt. I feel like he got some of the best, magical years of school, and frankly, as the kids start getting more clique-y and mean, I don’t think he’s going to miss that much with grades 3 and 4. I’m sad he hasn’t had full years of grade 1 and 2, but so so so grateful for his strong start to the school years in play school and JK and SK.

I know this is what you get when you’re a parent. From the beginning of Oliver’s life, I realized that becoming a parent meant constant worry — worry about safety and development, doing the right things for them, setting boundaries, deciding what our priorities are. Overall, hoping that all these little daily decisions we make for and about them will add up to good, productive, happy human beings.

Now, we’re making a huge life decision, knowing that it will have potentially enormous ramifications on who they are, how they develop and what kind of life they might lead. Obviously, we wouldn’t be doing it if we didn’t think it was the right thing to do for our family and didn’t believe that the good will outweigh the bad. But it’s hard to see all this evidence of Oliver’s wonderful, successful career at his school and not question if we’re doing the right thing. I can only hope that someday they look back on this time with us, doing this trip, and only think how lucky they were, not about what they missed.