The end of the school summer holidays seemed to come around too quickly for you this year. As the days gradually turn cooler and shorter, the school doors begin to open once more. It is an event that you have waited on with a mixture of emotions.

Year on year, you’ve watched other parents wave their pride and joy off to school. You have witnessed the highs and lows, the pride and the sorrow, the tears and the smiles. All from afar.

But this year, it is your turn ….to wave goodbye….

You stand at the gates, or maybe even the classroom door, and watch your pride and joy take a step forward into the big world. Without you. And you are overcome with pride.

But the pride is equaled, and possibly even overwhelmed, by a sense of loss, a slow creeping realisation that those precious days of pre-school, those days of togetherness and freedom, are gone forever. A hard truth you did not want to face just yet.

And you are sad. Understandably, achingly sad.

Letting go is hard.