“Daddy, will you come to school tomorrow to see my assembly,” she asked.

“Of course, I will. What are you doing?”

“Quite a few things, but they are a secret. You can see them when you come tomorrow,” she said with a smile in her eye. He smiled too.

That night he didn’t sleep, goading his watch to move faster.

The next morning father and daughter walked to school, hand-in-hand. She asked him to wait in the assembly hall. He waited there in the corner as the other parents spoke with each other. He didn’t know them; they didn’t know him either. He was not one of them.

In the assembly hall gallery, he sat at the edge of his seat, wide-eyed; making sure he didn’t miss anything.

Finally, his schooling was beginning to feel real; he had just attended his first assembly. His daughter looked at him, smiled and just before waving goodbye said, “Don’t forget, we’re sitting with your language workbook this evening.”