It is with great delight that I send my son off to his last day of third grade. I’m sure I will be equally delighted to send him back to school in August, but for now, I can revel that this year is finally over.

I have no more tears left for the phone calls to and from school, the almost daily emails and the mental and physical exhaustion. And today, it’s over. They are over. We are done.

We started this year hoping that it would be better than last year ended. He wouldn’t be the new kid in class. He was in the same class as two boys he already knew — his new best friend and our next door neighbor.

But it was the third grade. That brick wall, that so many kids hit, was right there waiting for us. And we ran into it going ninety miles an hour. It felt as though we were being smashed into tiny pieces. Our lives were shattering.

But, this year didn’t kills us. Although we are bruised and broken, we are healing. As with tough times of the past, I’m learning that our brokenness is necessary for spiritual growth. We learn when our world is crumbling. It is painful, but it produces strength.

Because of an amazing therapy team we ended with a starting point. We know that we are dealing with sensory processing disorder and dysgraphia. We also know that we are probably dealing with dyslexia.

We are stronger in our relationships with each other. I better understand my son. I hope he has grown to understand that there are many, many people on his side — fighting for him.

I was forced to become a better communicator because I was the common link between all The People. Homework management was the ultimate problem solving work out.

I discovered what not to do more often than I found things that worked. I messed up a lot. I dropped the ball a lot. If it’s true that we learn more from our mistakes, I made good on my educational achievement goals.

My husband and I set aside many conversations that we would like to have had in favor of long discussions of how we would survive this year. We pulled together and fought together. We learned about grace and got chances to practice our lessons over and over again.

And now, it’s summer break. We can rest. We will regroup. And we will keep hoping that, eventually, we will hurdle the wall instead of running smack into it. And next year, it will be fourth grade.