8 posts tagged “family”
Yesterday, after Max's karate class, a quick breakfast and sweep up of the kitchen, Max and I tumbled into our car and drove 40 minutes to the airport. We were early. We checked the monitors with wild anticipation and staked out good seats right by the door where the arriving passengers enter. Max ran back and forth and checked the arrival stats every five minutes--He came back triumphant at last. "Mommy" he squealed with joy "Its arrived!". Five minutes later my dear dear Erica and her oldest daughter Olivia were walking through the doors into our our arms as tears welled up in my eyes and ran down my cheeks. We hugged for what seemed like an eternity. A piece of my heart lives with Erica. It was nice to feel it close.
We have been friends since we were four.
It was sometime in kindergarden when she slipped her arm through mine and we whispered to each other that we would be friends forever. We meant it. Our friendship quickly turned into something that would forever cement our whole families into one.
She lived just up the street from me--a 2 minute bike ride away. My bus stop was at the end of her road--Huckleberry Lane. Her house was just a quick stop off on the way into town on a hot summer day. Our mothers carpooled us to religous ed, drama class, dance class. We played for hours in each others backyards. Many a Friday night our families dined together. The grownups then retired to the living room for a cocktail while we hid away in her bedroom listening to Billy Joel records, whispering our fears to each other. We gave each other nicknames and practiced our dance moves.
When we got to middle and high school, Erica was considered a cool kid. She was pretty and athletic and hung out with all the jocks. I was considered a nice kid, a smart kid, but I hung with another slightly less in-crowd. No matter, Erica included me and brought me along, refusing to buy into the nonsense of silly cliques. She even introduced me to my first serious boyfriend, a dreamy Canadian hockey player with blond hair and a sweet smile, someone who was part of her gang.
The summer we turned twelve our families started vacationing together every summer, something we would continue to do all the way through college. We laid on the beaches all day working on our tans and then wandered the beaches at night looking for boys.
When my parents went out of town, I slept at her house. It was on one such weekend that we both got in trouble with the police--being at a keg party when we should have been at the movies. We both spent a lot of time in the church youth group after that.
She visited me at college whenever her school's hockey team played ours. We stayed up all night whispering confessions to each other and never once uttered a word of judgement.
Together we have been through three marriages and two divorces. I held her after her dad died, borrowing a friends car to drive up and be there for the funeral. Between us we have birthed 4 children.
When I sat and cried with a screaming infant on my lap, she consoled me for hours. When the newness of motherhood got to be too much for me to take, she left her daughter with her husband and boarded a train. She helped me give Max his first bath and she did my laundry. When she was on bed rest for five months with her twins I called her almost every morning on my way into work to check in on her. Max and her children have grown close despite the 300 miles between our homes. We try to see them for at least an afternoon a couple times a year. On one such recent visit, these four wee ones (ages 5,6 and 7) linked arms themselves and whispered to that they too will be friends forever.
But those visits never seem to be enough for Erica and I. There are mouths to feed, boo-boos to kiss, hurts to sort out. Neither of us is really able to finish a thought. Little ears are always listening
Every couple of months, the phone will ring at 9 pm. "Are they asleep?" we whisper to each other referring to our children. If they are, we then settle in and start to talk. It will be hours before we get off the phone, bleary eyed and yet we still feel there is so so much more to say. Hanging up feels like a betrayal.
Erica has a heart so big and wide open. Her generousity knows no bounds. She is beloved and needed by everyone. I see in her face how she is so tired from her constant giving--she doesn't complain as she reaches down into her last bit of energy to give it to someone else. I want to wrap her in my arms and protect her from the world which doesn't know how lucky it is that she is in it. She is one of my heros.
This summer was the first year since we were twelve that we didn't sit on the beach in Rhode Island together for at least one afternoon. My heart has been aching ever since.
So Erica invented a new tradition. She realized we needed more time for late night whispering. While we craved two weeks away on a beach somewhere, we both knew that this thing called life meant we could not do it anytime soon. So she decided that she would bring each of her children down for an overnight visit. Each child would get one-on-one time with Max--and leave us to huddle together and talk. No men, no sibling rivalry to sort out. Just quality time, wine and chocolate. And so, yesterday she arrived for the first of these visits.
We wandered through downtown yesterday, Max showing off our little community to Olivia. We walked into the movie rental place and I told her a long and complicated story while the kids picked out a video. She looked at me with a wry smile on her face and interrupted me. "So essentially what you are telling me is this..." and then went on to sum up in 10 words or less a secret held so deep within my heart I had not dare say it outloud to anyone not even myself. After 34 years she can not only read my mind, she can read my heart. And she does it without an ounce of judgement.
Today when it was time to return them to the airport, her daughter lay on the floor by the door and cried. "I don't want to leave" she sobbed. I wanted to join her begging Erica not to go. I wanted to lay my body across the door and hold on to her ankles. I thought to myself, "Livie and I could take her..." But after all these years I know she will be back so I decided to instead support Erica as a parent and I picked up my keys and loaded the car, holding Livia by the hand. It was all I could do to leave them at security. Max and I secretly prayed that they would miss their flight and have to come home for and live with us "for a million years" or at least one more night.
They are home now, safe and sound. Back in their lives as we are back into ours. I will see her at Thanksgiving. We will drink coffee while the kids run wild. It won't be enough time. It never is.
And when it is time to get in the car, I will slip my arm through hers, rest my head on her shoulder and whisper to her that we will be friends forever. And I will count myself among the lucky for the gift of a true old friend.
He couldn't look more like my father (or my brother for that matter) in these moments...
Its rained a little everyday now. Not all day, just a bit. Enough to drive us all indoors for awhile to pop popcorn, or eat lunch inside before the sun comes out from behind the clouds again. And I have too admit, I have been a bit draggy and gray myself. Not all day. But I’ve been a bit more tired and grouchy than last year. A bit more foggy and tired.
Last year, my first year at the lake it didn’t rain at all. It was a picture perfect week—for both of us “the lake” and me.
Last year, the lake and I, we were like new lovers putting on our very best for each other. Every day I woke full of energy to witness her brilliant sunrise, the glassy stillness of the water at daybreak. Every day she sparkled, all blue skies and sunshine while I dwelled fully present in the marvel of every hour—“Look how lovely the trees look in the 2 pm light—how different from the way they looked this morning.” “Oh! The air smells so beautiful right now? Does it always smell so clean here on a Tuesday?” And every night we stayed up late together the lake and I, a chorus of thousands of grasshoppers playing along with the soundtrack of the restless waves rocking the boat knocking it against the dock, as I lay on my back on the green green grass and counted stars with my son.
But this year we are sure of our love for each other and so we are no longer pulling out the stops. I am too tired this year for sunrises. I wake well past dawn when the lake is already busy with swimming and kayaks. The nights are not always clear and bright. The grasshoppers are not always singing. And sometimes this lake she is even gray and choppy. And sometimes we both rain a bit.
Now don’t get me wrong…The lake is no less lovely to me. She is every bit as beautiful and peaceful as I remember. I am seeing a new side of her and finding new beauty in the rain rolling of the pines or the reflection of the dark clouds on the water. Furthermore, I am enjoying my time with my cousins twice as much as last year. There is a rhythm and a comfort this year—a routine that feels like it has always been this way—us here on the lake. We feed each others children and pick up our conversations exactly where we left off last year. There is not so much to catch up on. We can just look at each other and smile—holding hands while we watch our children play at the waters edge, helping gather each others books and towels when the storm clouds come.
And this comfort I think is translating to my relationship with these magic surroundings. The beautiful spot I call the lake--she knows I will come back each year a faithful pilgrim. And I too know that she will be here for me next year, a resting spot for my tired bones. This lake and I, we no longer need to impress one another. We are in that phase of a new relationship when you can relax and let a little of your imperfections show. I am really not that much of a morning person. She is not always sunny and bright. But we will love each other nevertheless. In sunshine and in rain. And that love is in the end better than a vacation full of sunshine.
Tomorrow Max and I are headed on a great adventure.
We are off to cabin #2 on a Woods Pond in Bridgton, Maine. We will be joined by a handful of my cousins on my mother's side and their kids. The family will take over almost all of the ten cabins that surround Woods Pond. There is only one small pay phone there--somewhere between cabin #4 and #5 I think. Near the boat house perhaps. I never used it. There is no internet, and barely any cell phone coverage. At night it is so pitch black that you can actually see the stars. During the day you might see a bald eagle go fishing..
Last year was our first year "at the lake" although my cousins have been going for years. It was nothing short of pure bliss. I would wake at sunrise and sit on my front porch with my tea and my book watching Kevin come back from his morning walk or Eileen to float in on her kayak. Max would wake in the morning and skip out of the house immediately finding an "uncle" (read: grown cousin) to take him fishing or one of his cousins--perhaps 12 year old Zach or the teenage Al and Chris to take him out in a boat. Dinners were communal, and delicous and often followed by a bon fire in a huge outdoor firepit. I sat in an adirondack chair almost all day, reading, knitting, catching up with the cousins. Drinking in calm and relaxation and day after day of perfect sunshine.
Our crazy world with its swirling chaos melted away. There was only peace punctuated by the sound of wooden screen doors banging as little children ran in between the cabins or a cousin brought a cool drink out to share.
I needed this trip last year. I had been doing the single mom thing for 15 months and was feeling overwhelmed, tired and a little bit a failure. I need to sink into love. But was nervous. Aside from Eileen, I had really lost touch with many of my cousins. We hadn't talked in ages. We didn't know each other anymore. No matter how hard I tried all my memories of connecting with this crowd floated up from decades past. It had been a long long time.
I knew I didn't have enough energy to put on a good face. I feared they would meet me at my worst.
But fortunately good faces aren't required in our family.
From the minute we pulled in my cousins accepted that I just was--asked nothing from Max and I other than our presence. Reconnection came almost instantly and the love that was woven during childhood, the adoration I had for my big cousins, the fondness I had for the younger ones, it all came flooding back to me as though it was summer 1978. It rose up in me like a song I had sung years ago and upon hearing again knew all the words--but with a twist. They had all grown up into such amazing, brave and interesting people.
But what was even better was watching Max discover the joy of a big huge crazy family. We have been such a small unit of 2 down here in Maryland. Last year with each fishing trip, each frisbee throw, each search for minnows and dragonflies he was weaving his own blanket of connectedness and family. I breathed a sigh of relief. He will have others who call him family, even long after I am gone. I saw it with my own eyes.
By the end of the week, it pained me to say goodbye to my long lost loved ones now found. I knew that the distance and the craziness of all our lives would take over. We made lots of ambitous plans on how we would get together--meet somewhere between New England and Maryland--let the kids play, pick up where we all left off. But I think we all really knew it would likely not happen. So just in case we all just immediately booked another week at the lake in advance. I can't believe it is already here.
Its true I haven't seen any of them (accept Eileen- once- last fall) since we pulled out of the woods and hit the highway. But last week I had a message on my cell phone from Kevin. "Are you still coming?" he asked the playfulness of a 9 year old in his voice. I know he is just dying to dunk me in a kayak.
Six little words. Six little words were all it took to let Sadness in the door. And last night at this time Saddness she was sitting on my chest, refusing to get off.
Mondays are Max's day with his dad. For me, they are a rare break. At first they felt empty and alone. I would stay long hours at work or wander aimlessly through the downtown. But lately I have claimed Monday nights as me-time. I write. I draw. I wander with purpose. I eat ice cream. Every Monday I arrive home between 7 and 8. Technically, I am not back on duty until 8. But Max loves having Juan and I in the same place so much. Its now part of our routine. I come home a little early. Juan leaves a little late. We play a card game. Kick a ball around. Watch a movie. The three of us. The whole family. For twenty minutes, once a week.
Yesterday we played a made up game with the Pokemon cards and we asked Max if he was excited about his impending graduation from pre-school. He was thoughtful and serious. "Yes," he said. "We are going to sing. But don't tell anyone. Its a surprise for the parents." We pinky promised the three of us. As Juan kissed him goodnight, he said to him "I will see you tomorrow, mijo. At your graduation." "Yes," Max said wide eyed and solemn. "The whole family will be there".
When Max says "the whole family" he does not mean a carload of siblings, or a parade of grandparents, cousins, uncles and aunts. No, for him the whole family means Papi, Mommy and Max. Sometimes when he is feeling generous and expansive he includes Rosie the cat. But usually its just the three of us. Together in one place.
Having the whole family together is something most of his friends take for granted. Its a weekday supper, a Saturday morning, a regular, banal affair. But for Max it is a rare treat to be savored. A holy serious and noteworthy occasion. And I hate this. I hate it with ever fiber of my being.
Long after Max had laid his tired head to sleep, these six little words left me sobbing audibly, mourning all he has lost and all that which I too have lost through this separation--this soon to be divorce.
Because those words signified a deeper truth that none of us dared whisper--Our family is not whole. And this has left all three of us a little worse for the wear.
As I tumble through the never ending days with their up and downs I am saddened and angry that I cannot process the day with the only other person who loves Max as much as I do. I am lonely in my worry about his cough--"Did that sound OK to you?" I ask to noone in particuar. There is only a journal to reflect my memories back at me. No one to giggle with over the silly jokes at the dinner table.
And I know that Juan mourns too. But his pain must be so much worse. For he must feel a deep emptiness that comes from not being there to bear witness to this great life he helped create. Most days he misses so much.
But mostly I mourn for Max. He recently shared with me that he can't really remember what it was like when Juan lived at home with us. He only knows that he misses it. That it is somehow a little sadder without his papi around.
We are trying, the three of us, to make something new out of the ashes of the old. It will never be the way it was--it cannot be. And while I mourn what is lost, I am proud that we are trying to make something meaningful out of the messiness. I know too many families who cannot be together for their kids--they split up holidays, birthdays, trade off on special events. Their children will never even know what it is like to have the Whole Family There. We lurch about gracelessly but at least we try.
Today Juan and I sat together, side by side and watched the singing, the parading. I cried in the beginning. Juan teared up at the end. Together we heard Max's teacher talk about how he wants to be a policeman just like his Uncle Sean and we smile at each other knowingly. "Of course," we say "Yes." Together we beam with pride. Max beams back at us and points us out to his friends. "Look" he says--"my mom AND my dad" giggling with delight. His friends look at him blankly--they do not know the joy of whole family-ness even though they experience it each day. And maybe, just maybe, Max is rather blessed to learn at such a young age to appreciate such a precious gift.
This morning for just an instant we were whole again. The whole family was there together. Different, maybe not better, but most definitely for a brief moment whole.
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I am feeling rather anxious today. I can't say exactly why--Its a generalized anxiety that leaves me feeling jittery and a bit skittish as though I have had too much caffeine. My chest feels a little tight. I peer around each corner warily. I have learned that when I feel this way it is best to draw inward. To not try and chase my anxiety away with distractions. I am quiet today and still and just sit with this buzziness. I remind myself to breathe and that helps. Alot.
Last night Max and I played this game where we climb under blankets with flashlights. We take turns lighting our faces and telling stories. It is one of those games that seems to bubble up from a big collective childhood memory-- hardwired in every child's DNA. Like saying "Is not"/"Is too" or twirling around and around until you fall on the grass.
Max's stories are usually about Pokemon or superheros. Often these days they are spiced with potty humor. My stories tend to be old favorites--stories told hundreds of times. Sometimes when Max is feeling scared I tell him stories about a dragon named Max who is very compassionate and brave. A dragon who feels sad and angry and sometimes scared and always does the right thing anyway. Max the Dragon is a blatant propaganda tool, I know. But lately Max seems bored with such lack of subtlety. He asks instead for stories from my childhood. Last night he asked me to tell him the story about Uncle Sean and the racoons. My brother is a big bad macho guy. Ex Army paratrooper, Iraqi war veteran, current NY City cop. When Sean and I were teenagers, a family of racoons invaded our house when my mom and dad were away for the weekend. Sean barricaded us into his bedroom with his dresser and then he made me, his smaller, meeker sister climb out the window using the ladder from his bunkbed, so that I could open the back door and let the poor scared creatures out of our house while he cowered under his bed. Max loves this story, I think, because he is able to see his larger-than-life uncle for who he is, a real live human being, with fears and vulnerabilities. Scared sometimes just like him. And Max is able to imagine himself one day big and strong, like Uncle Sean even though he might be just "a little freaked out" about something now and then.
Tomorrow Max is going to graduate from preschool. I have been wistful all weekend thinking of the last three years. When we started at this school he was still in diapers, chubby cheeked and terrified. Leaving him at school was so hard that fall--he seemed so vulnerable--so tender--so small. He has grown now into a long-legged freckled-face boy with a wiggly tooth--a boy who jumps out of the car and runs to the tire swing without so much as a look back at his mama. He went from a clinging toddler tenatively exploring to a boy running wild on the playground.
And while he is still sweetly boy, all cuddle and kisses, each day there are moments when I need to look just a little harder to spot his vulnerability. He tries so hard to be fierce and strong -- using the boy code trying to mask his tender self. "You are SO going DOWN" he says to me when I challenge him to a Pokemon battle. He has permanently dirty knees. He has started to roll his eyes. To be a little bit elementary school. He is ready.
Tomorrow he will leave preschool behind, in the dust. Like babyhood and the toddler years, this period of our life will fade, captured only in photos, boxed up artwork and not enough anecdotes written down in our memory books. Fade away until at last we are left with only fragmented memories of these precious years. The mothers' day teas, the days when I co-oped and brought his favorite snacks, the silly games we played on the drive to school. Perhaps he will remember the wind on his face as the tire swing spun. Or waving to his mama as she drove away. Will he long for his best friends and their games--or simply the utter the joy of ruling the playground? Or will he move on to the new joys of elementary school without so much as a look back?
Knowing how fast his childhood is slipping away I long to hold on to each precious minute. I vow to relish each chance to kiss away hurts, to learn about the person he is becoming, to connect with him, to not leave him feeling alone. But then the phone rings, my computer beckons, the dryer tells me the clothes are done. I am distracted. I look up only to find he has fallen asleep for the night on the couch while I finished one last email, the book I promised to read him on his lap. I pick him up and carry him to bed.
I know now what has set my heart a flutter this day--this eve of a transition both so big and so small. I am afraid I will blink and I will miss it--this magical childhood of his.
Life has been a little crazy here this last week. Yesterday Max and I went to the dentist. He is OK, although he has a few cavities. The loose tooth that made me so crazy the night before will fall out on its own in a matter of weeks. While the dentist wouldn't have given me the prize for Dental Mother of the Year he also refrained from calling me a bad mother. And perhaps I only imagined the dirty looks.
Last night when getting ready for bed Max was complaining about his foot. He has lots of small aches and pains my wee one. Nevertheless I turned on the light and took a good hard look. A foot that was perfectly fine just hours before when he was running and jumping at the pool was inflamed. A strange sore had grown upon his big toe and the infamous red streaks all moms dread were creaping up his foot. I took one look at his foot, and bundled him up to take him to the emergency room.
I was a mama bear acting on pure instinct. I had put shoes on that foot just hours before when it was dirty but otherwise normal. Who knew how bad the infection would be by morning? As I rocked him while the doctor lanced his wound, cleaned it out and gave him a shot of antibiotics I knew I was no bad mom.
This morning we woke up to a new crisis. A stomach bug and bronchial thing had taken hold of his poor little body. I called in sick. My beautiful little angel needed me more. He was having a rough couple of days.
I have been back to work for all of half a week and already taken 2 days off. I will need to take Friday off as well to shuttle him to follow up appointments. I think about the work piling up, the patient colleauges who are getting restless, all the things that are getting put on hold. I think about the house which in the matter of three days has turned into a complete disaster zone. About the laundry to be done, the lack of clean underwear, the lack of healthy food in the fridge.
At times like these I have been known to throw open the door to a pity party. I want people to feel sorry for me and to acknowlege how hard it is to be a single mom. I want them to give me permission for my bad mood, my frustration. I want them to give me a pass on the things that won't get done and to give me permission to stop at Cold Stone Creamery and buy two half gallons of ice cream. I want them to let me sleep.
Other times I steam with the unfairness of it all. I even indulge in a little envy--the friends with partners who will split the staying at home with the child shifts, who have the grandmas who live close and will run to the drug store or better yet will take a shift. I think about how much easier it would all be if only I could JUST be a mom and put the crazy career on hold. If managing the stuff of life could be my full time job. I dream of winning the lottery.
Sometimes, I plow through these days with humor, laughing at the absurdity of it all so that I won't break down and cry. I keep my head down and pay attention to the most important things--Max, trying to work from home, getting to the drug store, the doctors office. I step over the clutter piling up in my house and triage the crises at work. I try to block out the voice inside me that likes to lecture and blame.
And sometimes, like tonight, it dawns on me that this suffering that I am feeling is really quite universal. I am grateful for the moment when I can feel at one with all the single moms who are trying to keep it together. I think about the moms who can't work from home: the waitresses, the store clerks--the ones who lose a days pay on days like this or worse yet lose their jobs. I think of the moms whose "helpful" families make them feel small. I think of the moms and dads who need to calculate how many days off they will need to give up in order to pay for the visit to the emergency room, the dentist, the doctor. Knowing that my frustration, suffering and pain, while real, is just a tiny drop in a great sea of mom suffering doesn't make me feel better, but it makes me want to take a pass on the pity party.
Sometimes my life needs a little unraveling. Like when I am knitting. Sometimes I will look at the last week's work and realize that it is just not right. It always pains me to throw days of work down the drain as I pull out row after row but ultimately the finished product will be better. There is something to be learned when the universe pull on our loose ends and unravels our supposedly perfect plans. And I dear friends am a work in progress. A little unraveling won't hurt.
Today I think I won the "Bad Mom" award. Here is the evidence against me.
1. We were in Trader Joe's doing some last minute grocery shopping at 8 pm (when all good 5 year olds should be getting ready for bed no less)--late because I was late home from work due to meeting which went way too long and which I didn't have the nerve after my long vacation to walk out of to make it home in time.
2. Max was chomping on the cookies and grapes from the "free sample bar" because we had yet to eat dinner.
3. Max bites down on a GRAPE and hears a loud splitting crack. Sobbing and scared from the sudden pain, blood running down his little quivering chin. "Mommy", he wimpers choking on his tears. "I think I cracked my tooth". I stop to examine the situation. His entire tooth, just a few minutes anchored firmly in his mouth is now loose and wobbly. What's more it is black near the root (perhaps from the blood?). I am convinced that this is because I have not taken him to the dentist. Ever. I hate going to the dentist so much that even the thought of them makes me break into a cold sweat. The little piece of paper with the list of good family dentists that our pediatrician gave me in DECEMBER has sat by the phone. And I have lately let toothbrushing be a battle that I pick only once a day not twice. Now my child has a broken tooth. Its all my fault.
4. I go to the dairy aisle and pick up the milk we came for instead of rushing him out of Trader Joes and to an emergency dental facility. Do they have emergency dental facilities? I am convinced that if I had only taken him to the dentist in the first place I would know EXACTLY what to do in this situation.
5. We come home and drink Smoothies for dinner because he is afraid to chew on anything. Not homemade fruit smooties but the prepared store bought kind that while organic are loaded with organic sugar. The perfect elixer for a tooth problem?!? Everything soft I have has sugar in it. Max refuses to eat soup. I think if I wake the doctor on-call they will tell me I am a bad mother and that there is nothing they can do about it.
6. I can't find the list of dentists--the one that I have stared at every day for six months. I look up the pediatric dentist on-line and get so freaked out that I forget to write down the phone number. I look it up again. I let Max watch TV while I do this despite the fact it is WAY past his bedtime. He falls asleep without brushing his teeth.
Stay tuned. I will let you know if they take me away to mother jail in the morning or worse yet if they have had to yank out all my precious baby's teeth.
