The End of an Era

At her youngest child's graduation festivities, Elizabeth Leon recalls the impact of her Catholic-school community in her life.

On Tuesday I hopped in the car with my youngest daughter and pulled out of the driveway at 7:40 a.m. for the last time. We drove to school in the glow of an already warm June day. As we were heading out of the house, I had a quick thought. “We should probably take a picture!” I said to Clare. “I was wondering when you would say that,” she tossed back with a smile and we took a selfie and an obligatory last-day-of-school picture on the front stoop.

Her last day of school.

Her last day of 8th grade.

My youngest child’s last day of middle school.

My whole family’s very last day at St. Theresa’s after 18 years.

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On a good day we can be at school in 4 minutes. We barely had time to say our morning prayer and pop on one of Clare’s favorite Beatles tunes before she was out the door in the car line. One last kiss. One last drive away.

My oldest daughter Maggie began kindergarten at St. Theresa Catholic School in 2003. I can barely remember that stage of life with a different husband in a different house with only 3 children. I buckled a baby and a toddler into car seats along with Maggie in her booster seat and made the first of over 6,500 pick-up and drop-offs to St. Theresa Catholic school. Last week I did the last.

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The school planned a festive car parade for the 8th graders for their final send-off. I thought it fitting that after so much time driving back and forth to school, our last hurrah was in our cars. While Clare finished her last day, I made colorful signs for the car and taped them to the sides. At dismissal, students and staff lined the track while the 8th graders made one final celebratory walk. After everyone was loaded into cars, the 8th graders climbed through sunroofs and hung out windows and perched on the edge of convertibles while parents made one last drive through each of the parking lots. We honked and held signs and waved. Clare and I cranked the Beatles and fittingly, “Let It Be” filled the car as I slowly drove through the ranks, waving with Clare and wiping tears from my eyes.

These moments mark our lives, moments that are so full our hearts spill over. Births, marriages, graduations, firsts, lasts. I am a woman who has had a lot of change in my life, and I am so grateful for the pillars of stability that held fast while the tides of my life ebbed and flowed, and sometimes crashed, around them.

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I am so grateful for the pillars of stability that held fast while the tides of my life ebbed and flowed, and sometimes crashed, around them. #catholicmom

St. Theresa School lasted longer than my first marriage. It welcomed and loved my first 5 children and prayed with and for our family as we mourned the death of my 6th. It supported my children and I through a messy divorce, and I reconnected with my new husband within her walls when my oldest and his youngest were in a musical together in 7th grade. This school watched us all grow, learn, change, heal, and—one by one—make our way out of the security of its small, parochial embrace.

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Life has shifted significantly this year with one child off to college, another mostly at his dad’s house, Clare moving on to high school, and the six older kids all independent adults. My own vocation as primarily a stay-at-home mom has expanded to include author, writer, and ministry leader. All this stretching and shifting and growing is good and right and true, but still leaves me breathless some days. Where did all the time go? I am old enough now to ask.

Do you feel this ache too at your own pivotal moments? Your own slideshow playing in your head of the millions of moments that came before? The 6,000 car rides when I forgot to notice the radiant beauty of ordinary miracles as we raced out the door and forgot lunches or PE uniforms or permission slips?

My heart is full. With great love and the smell of roses in the air, we say our deepest "thank you" to this beautiful school community who kept us rooted and grounded in the love of Christ for the last 18 years. St. Theresa, pray for us.

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