Father Grows Concerned When His Daughter Stays on School Bus Longer Than Other Children — Story of the Day

A father worried about why his daughter frequently remained on the school bus after the other children had exited, so he chose to investigate. What he discovered was not what he anticipated.

Benjamin Bruce was a single father who had to assume the role of his child’s mother after she passed away. Their daughter, Emily, had been six years old when it occurred.

Ben loved his daughter because, to him, she represented everything left of his beloved wife, and he had also made her a promise that Emily would be properly cared for regardless of circumstances.

To that end, Ben made every effort to balance work while remaining involved in his daughter’s life. He had no other family members he trusted to look after her, so he had to manage everything on his own.

The initial couple of years were challenging for him as a parent, and just as he was adjusting to the constant changes, his daughter reached puberty, and at that point, matters became more complicated.

She suddenly began experiencing physical transformations right before his eyes, and he understood what they signified — the boys would be pursuing her. How could they not; his daughter possessed his late wife’s red hair and deep green eyes that appeared designed to captivate.

Even Ben was not unaffected by her eyes and had succumbed to her influence multiple times over the years. When she turned 12, two years after reaching puberty, Emily discovered boys.

That resulted in her devoting considerable attention to her hair and appearance because she wanted to look attractive for her school crush. Ben was prepared to fend off boys with force if necessary, but what he was not ready for was managing his daughter’s grooming.

Emily had to handle that herself, but she was unskilled at it with no role model to learn from. Ben often simply cut her hair short during her childhood because he knew nothing about hair maintenance, but he had to respect her wishes to keep her hair longer as she grew older.

There was little he would not do for his child, so to assist her, he started brushing her hair when it became long enough. He was a large man, and despite trying to be gentle, he occasionally pulled it out.

“Ouch!!!!” she yelled one day.

“I’m sorry baby,” he apologized quickly, as he always did.

“You need to be more gentle daddy,” she would scold him sometimes.

Other times, she simply endured the discomfort because she did not want to make her father feel guilty for causing it. Ben felt the sting of his failure each time his daughter complained of her hair being pulled, and that made him attempt to cut her hair again.

“Just get rid of it all,” he would say when they argued about it occasionally. “Your mom kept her hair cropped short and she still looked beautiful.”

“Daddy, I will no longer cut my hair, look how slowly it grows because of how often you cut it in the past,” she would retort. In any case, Ben never won the arguments, but he didn’t need to; they stopped arising after a short while.

Shortly after that, he noticed that his daughter started receiving tardy notices from her class teacher, Mrs. Flynn. So he called the woman to investigate.

“That’s right, Mr. Bruce. Your daughter has five tardy notices this week alone. Is there anything occurring I should know about?” the woman asked him.

“Nothing is occurring. Things have been fine at home for some time now and I do send her off to catch the bus early so I’m confident she arrives at school when others do,” he explained.

“Did you notice anything unusual with her this past week?” Ben asked.

“Well, I was running late for class once and I observed her exiting the bus rather late even though she should have been in class by that time. The driver probably knows something about it because only they can access the bus at any time.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Flynn, I’ll get to the bottom of this,” Ben told her before concluding the call.

Concerned about why his daughter was spending additional time on a bus, Ben followed her the next day. True to what Mrs. Flynn had told him, he observed that everyone on the bus exited when it arrived on the school grounds — everyone except his daughter.

As soon as he could, Ben rushed into the bus in a panic thinking the worst but was instead met with the sight of a kind 40-year-old woman combing his daughter’s hair. The woman, Madeline, was the bus driver.

“Mr. Bruce?” the woman exclaimed at his sudden entrance as Emily looked up, surprised to see her father.

“Dad? What are you doing here?”

“Hello ma’am,” Ben said after clearing his throat and composing himself. “Sorry about bursting in, but I heard my daughter was receiving tardy notices so I came to see why.”

“Oh, well in that case, here’s why,” the woman said, gesturing to his daughter’s hair. “I noticed how she seemed to struggle with her hair so I offered to help her brush it every day before she goes to class because she says her unruly hair often makes her feel self-conscious.”

“Honey,” Ben said to his daughter. “You never told me this.”

“I just didn’t want you to worry about it,” Emily defended.

Later that day, Ben invited Madeline for coffee. When the bus driver heard about what happened to his wife, she began to cry.

She herself was a cancer survivor, and she was fully aware of how fortunate she was to have survived and was thankful that she could still be present for her own children.

Madeline believed she survived for the children on the bus who needed someone to talk to or do their hair or whatever, so she asked Ben to find a compromise that would assist his daughter.

To that end, Ben spoke to Mrs. Flynn, her teacher, and after explaining the situation to the woman, Emily never received a tardy notice again. Ben was grateful to Madeline, and he remained close friends with her for a long time.

What did we learn from this story?

Never jump to conclusions. Ben gave himself a fright when he immediately assumed something inappropriate was occurring between the bus driver and his child, and if he had not taken the trouble to verify it, matters might have taken a terrible turn.
Give back when you can. Madeline believed she was spared from death to care for other children, and that was what she did. Caring for those children was her way of giving back, and it left her feeling fulfilled, especially since she was able to impact lives like Emily’s and Ben’s.