DEAR SEAN:
My first day of school is tomorrow. I'm at a new school and don't know people and I’m scared. Mom says don't be because everyone always likes me.
FIRST-GRADE ‘FRAIDY CAT
DEAR ‘FRAIDY CAT:
My first day of kindergarten scared me. I thought it would be an awful lot like going to kiddy prison.
Namely, because they had schedules for everything. Schedules for eating. Schedules for recess. Schedules for the commode.
I cried when my mother walked me to the door.
“Please don’t make me go,” said I.
“You’re gonna be fine,” she said. “And when you look back on this day, you’ll feel silly.”
She was right. I feel silly.
School was big fun. Our teacher played piano and sang. She read stories. She taught us to use the john on command. I made my first paper Valentine. I tasted my first swig of Elmer’s.
Try not to worry because you'll have a lot of scary firsts in life, just like me.
For example: many years later,
Mama drove me to my first date—sort of. I was twelve.
Her name was Anne. She had naturally curly hair, and I liked her more than hand-cut onion rings.
I rode in Mother’s car, nervous. I wore my Sunday best, and I’d used so much Alberto V05 I resembled a Cupie doll whose hair had been dipped in mayhaw jelly and lit on fire.
I was trembling when we arrived at Anne's birthday party.
“You’re gonna be okay,” my mother said. “One day, you’ll look back and feel silly about this.”
Mama.
Then, I hit adulthood. I lived on my own. My mother got sick. Very sick. Doctors gave her some bleak…