I didn’t cry.

My son just had his first day at school. When did he become old enough to do that?

I woke up early to get some work done and make sure everything was ready to go before this once-in-a-lifetime event; I wasn’t going to miss it for the world, and I certainly wasn’t going in to it unprepared.

So, of course, when I pulled out the checklist to make sure we had what we needed for day and saw that I forgot to put together a small emergency pack and now had an hour to assemble it, I found myself rushing to the store, Brendan slung over my shoulder, to grab various snacks, consider his favorite juices, and searching for much too long a time for one of those travel-sized hand sanitizers.

I was winded; he practically giggled the whole way through. We made it back to the house in record time.

The night before, Kathryn and I went through his closet to find the perfect outfit to wear to his new school with his new teachers and his new friends. He seemed agreeable to the shirt-and-pants combination at the time.

But in true pre-schooler fashion, Brendan threw that outfit out the window at the last minute, and instead donned a green dinosaur jacket, complete with spines and eyes and teeth on the hood; barring his fangs and showing his claws, he gave a mighty rawr.

Our dog was bemused; that was usually her job.

The clock was ticking, but pictures needed to happen.

Kathryn impulse-bought an empty picture frame, with “First Day Of School” printed on one side, and “Last Day Of School” printed on the other, the thought being to document a school-year’s worth of growth in just two snapshots.

Getting him to hold it up was a challenge; it mostly rested askew on his shoulders, as he insisted he hold the frame in one hand and his best friend Fox in the other while he humored us in this moment.

In true pre-schooler fashion, trying to get him to smile was a Herculean feat. Yes, his pearly whites were on full display, but Bren has yet to fully understand that “smiling” is more than just sticking your neck out and pulling back your gums as far as possible.

Kathryn was the winner of that shoot, capturing a moment of a shy look and a quiet curl of the lips; calling it a success, we piled into the car and double, triple, quadruple checked that we had everything we needed.

We pulled up to his school right on time. While we walked down the path to his “classroom”, Kathryn and I quizzed Brendan about how he says “please” and “thank you” and when he needs to tell a teacher that he needs to pee.

It was a grey morning, nothing like I expected his first day of school to be, especially because there was cloudless sun the day before. It was even drizzling a little.

But the trees that made up his learning space kept out the wet and the cold. The ground was dry, which likely meant that I would not have to utilize the extra pair of socks I had stashed into my back pocket when we picked him up in a few hours.

Upon entering the glade, Brendan zeroed in some cooking utensils across the way, ignoring the gaggle of other children who were also were self-absorbed in their own activities.

Kathryn and I approached a teacher and exuded “first kid, first day of school” parent energy as we chatted nervously.

It was probably a few minutes past when we ought to have left when we turned and saw him in the dirt, a stick already held firmly in his tiny hands.

That’s when I knew everything was going to be okay; everything is okay if you’ve got a stick, I’ve learned.

We gave him our kisses and said our goodbyes.

And in true pre-schooler fashion, he took those in stride before rushing off to do whatever his little three-year-old brain told him to do. The last thing I saw before I turned to exit the forest was the back of that little dinosaur head, blonde curls escaping the hood.

Kathryn and I left, hand in hand. We weren’t going far. We wouldn’t go far for the world, but we’d go far enough to get some espresso and tea.

But the path that led us away from our son stretched on.

She squeezed my hand. I squeezed back. I can’t remember if we talked.

But I didn’t cry.

I swear, I didn’t cry.

It was just the rain.