Separation Anxiety

At lunch we were talking about separation anxiety.  Some times children are so attached to their parents (mothers) that they can't let go to get on the school bus or enter a classroom. I used to have a neighbor who's four year old daughter clung to her leg so tight she looked like an alien creature coming across the lawn.  One of my friends described her now 20-year old, over six foot tall son as a spider like creature who planted his hands and feet against the school bus door frame and would not get on the Head Start school bus.  No way.  No how. She tried.  She followed the school bus for two weeks in her car.  She stayed in the classroom with him for two solid weeks before she gave up and kept him at home.  Another friend's little kindergarten girl would not stop crying for the first half hour the first week of kindergarten.  She sobbed uncontrollably for five consecutive days.  Both these children overcame their separation anxiety eventually.  My offspring never had that problem.  They got on the bus willingly and never looked back which was good because I didn't want them to see the tears in my eyes.  When they went to school that meant they were growing up.  And I know as a parent that is what the ultimate plan is supposed to be.  Kids are supposed to grow up.  But it made me sad because I enjoyed their preschool years so much.  And when I was a child I did not have separation anxiety.  I might have had the opposite of separation anxiety if there is such a thing.  I can remember my first time on a school bus vividly.  A big yellow bus with a stop sign on the side came down Dale Street.   My aunt, A, got on the bus.  And I followed her and sat in the seat next to her.  I was so happy to go to school!  I had a big smile on my round little face.  But Grandma said I had to get off the bus.  Grandma said I could not go to school. WTH!  I remember having a tantrum.  I was crying and kicking and clinging to the bus seat.  My poor Grandmother peeled my chubby fingers off the seat and physically hauled me off the bus with my feet off the ground.  She set me down on the grass outside and the yellow school bus pulled away with out me while I continued to cry.  She wasn't happy with me.  I wasn't happy with her.  I wanted to go to school and she wouldn't let me!  This was totally out of character for my Grandma.  Normally she was kind and understanding.  A got to go to school.  If A got to go, why couldn't I?  A and I did everything together.  We lived next door to each other.  We played together.  We were the same age.  And even though she was my aunt she felt like a sister to me.  Or maybe a cousin.  So when she got to go to school I naturally assumed I'd be going with her. Why didn't anybody explain that A got to go to school and I didn't?  What possible reason could there be for this injustice?  My separation anxiety, if I had any, was being separated from A.  A's first day of kindergarten was a hard, hard day for me.  I guess I'm still a little upset about it. Things between A and I were forever different.  She was older.  She was a year ahead of me in school.  And oh, how that hurt at first.  A year seems like forever to a 5 year old but eventually I got to get on that school bus too which is where I belonged and where I SHOULD have been a year earlier!