Category Archives: Divorce, international co-parenting

But I don’t WANNA ask for help

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Image from telegraph.co.uk

Got back Thursday night

After four nights on a business trip.

Took a taxi home from the airport through the

Dark streets of my city.

I came in the front door

And stood for a moment in the dimmed, quiet living room.

Then I went into my son’s room and let myself

Wake him up a little–

I couldn’t resist–

By rubbing the warm back under the shirt.

My son speaks in complete sentences

When you wake him up,

As if picking up in the middle of a conversation:

“Will you sleep down here tonight?”

“No, but I’ll check on you before I go to sleep.”

“Do I have school tomorrow?”

“Yes, tomorrow’s Friday. Go back to sleep now.”

And he does!

I hate being away from home overnight because

Yes, I miss my family,

But also because

When I’m gone on a school night,

I have to ask three or four people for help.

And I hate asking for help.

I have to ask Joe to change his schedule,

I have to ask my brother or dad to

Come over in the morning to

Get my son to the bus stop,

I have to ask a neighbor to take my son after school once or twice.

And of course I have to ask my son

To be good, don’t be sad

While I’m gone.

So many people inconvenienced,

I always think.

So I call Joe the second night and ask about my son,

“How is he?”

Expecting reports of tantrums and tears.

“He’s fine,” Joe says.

“I think it’s good for him to get some time with me.”

I get a voice mail from my brother:

“Hey it was nice to spend some time with him.

I don’t want to wake up at 6 everyday to do it,

But every once in a while,

It’s really cool.”

And the neighbor:

“Yeah, the boys played cars and it was great.”

And my boy after I got home:

Perfectly normal,

In fact, particularly well-behaved.

Unaffected, it would seem

By my absence.

(I forget:

I’m not as important as I think.)

The fact is,

I don’t want to ask for help.

I don’t want to owe you,

Or have you balk at my nervous request.

“No, no, we’re fine. I got it,”

Has been my mantra.

But,

If I don’t ask for help,

You don’t get the chance to help me.

It’s selfish to

Not

Ask for help.

I need to give you the opportunity to be of service,

And give my son the opportunity to have a

Different experience–

Without me.

It’s scary though.

What if you say no?

Well I guess I’ll find out on my next overnight trip:

The day after Halloween.

All Saints Day.

Give my brother the chance to grope for sainthood by

Waking up an hour early to come over and help get

My son to the bus stop.

You’re welcome, Doug.

The sacred lunch hour

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My son comes home after a summer with his dad and

Everything changes

Schedule-wise.

That’s what I’m looking for, actually.

A wise schedule.

The one thing I know is

Exactly how to spend that

Workday lunch hour.

Five free hours per week.

No kids!

“I never know what to do with my lunch hour.

I just wander around the skyways.”

I’ve heard people say.

Not me.

I know exactly what do with it.

Lately,

It’s swimming laps at the YMCA,

Or today, writing my blog post.

Sometimes it’s a 12-step meeting.

Use that hour

Effectively.

‘Cause evenings and weekends,

They don’t belong to me.

Which is great.

I love the hectic family life.

But my lunch hour is sacred.

If I schedule a lunch with you,

I’m giving something up.

You don’t need to know that;

I’ve thought it out

And made the decision after some deliberation.

And once a week,

That’s not a big deal.

But I might say,

“Sorry,

I can’t this week.”

And the secret is,

It’s because I gotta

Hide at the corner table of a

Skyway cafe

With a styrofoam cup of soup,

A plastic spoon,

My journal,

And a pen.

An hour to gird up

For the ceaseless action of home life.

So if you see me sitting alone

At a two-top

In a skyway coffee shop,

Don’t go out of your way to say hello.

Believe me,

I won’t take it personally.

We can even pretend we didn’t see each other.

For all I know,

You’re on your way to your

Lunch hour hideout

For your own delicious

Hour of solitude.

Have a good one.

See you around.

Got my son back

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People asked in the days before I left

To bring my boy home,

“Are you excited?”

“Yes,” I would say

Slowly.

“Of course.”

But the truth is,

It’s not excitement I feel.

It’s relief.

Relief because this

Separation

Is nearly at an end.

Relief because I’m nearly whole again,

Whereas when my boy is gone,

There’s a bit missing.

So excitement?

I don’t get excited about much these days.

I’m a tough sell.

Steadiness and

Peace,

My watchwords,

Preclude excitement

For good or bad.

Relief is the right word

Relief to squeeze the small body to me.

(It is painfully unnatural to

Not

Touch your child for

Months on end.

Painfully.)

My separation time is over for now,

Which means his father’s is just beginning.

At the airport

His father watches us go through security.

I hoist the boy up three or four times to wave.

His dad stays until he can’t see us anymore.

Six days till I get my boy back

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On Friday, I fly to Finland to

Bring my son home.

We’ve been doing this for three years,

So I’ve got some experience with the

Airport reunion.

Last year

When I went to get him,

I hadn’t seen him in person for

Seven

Months.

(Every-other-day Skype chats

Make this all possible.)

At the Helsinki airport

I came out a different door than

He and his aunt were expecting.

As I came up from the side,

I could see him

Standing on his tiptoes,

Looking for me to come through the

Security doors.

Smiling.

He was smiling.

That’s important.

I grabbed him from the side;

He never saw me coming.

The body was stout and thicker than I remembered;

The giggling face rounder.

Leaving the airport,

He became shy with me and

Ran up to his aunt,

Grabbed her hand.

No way, I thought.

I scooped him up,

And gave him a fart kiss on his belly,

And he laughed,

And had no problem holding my hand after that.

After seven months in Finland

He wasn’t speaking any English.

There were times I had to ask his aunt or his father,

“What’s he saying?”

But I decided:

I’m the mom,

And I’m not going to waste one minute not acting like it.

I’m not going to

Ruminate on

What it means

That I have to ask someone to

Translate for my own son.

No.

Stop.

Act like the mom.

Take him to the bathroom.

Pay for his lunch.

Help him put his shoes on.

Choose his clothes, and help him get dressed.

Don’t stop and think.

No analysis and no self-pity.

(Even jet-lagged.)

Because there he was at a Helsinki park:

Scampering to the top of a small cliff,

The sun in his butter-yellow hair.

He pointed to where he wanted me to stand,

Then leaped off the rock,

Laughing,

His solid body hurtling toward me,

Completely trusting that I’ll catch him.

“Saada minut!” he yelled.

Get me!

I will, buddy.

That’s why I’m here.

Divorced parenting with benefits

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Before I say anything,
A disclaimer:
Of course
I would always prefer to have my son
Here
With me,
Playing with toy cars on the
Rainbow-striped pile rug
In his bedroom.
But,
I have to say,
My husband and I have had a couple of
Very nice kid-free weekends this summer.
Between two co-parenting schedules
For three adolescent kids,
We get five to seven kid-free weekends
Per year,
Mostly in the summer when my boy
Is with his dad.
On the Friday of a kid-free weekend
We look at each other across the
Weirdly tidy living room and say,
“What should we do?”
Mostly,
We can’t think of
Anything.
It’s my fault.
Joe comes up with ideas–a movie, a late concert–
And nothing feels momentous enough for me.
(Or else I’m too tired.)
The other night,
I was so determined to think of something
Amazingly adventurous and fun,
And I was so completely unable to do so,
That I spun suddenly into the
Sadness death spiral
Where I miss my son so much
That I want to crash to the rug
And lie there unmoving,
Not even crying,
Just blinking and staring at the dust heaps
Under the couch.
(I did rally that night,
And we played cribbage and listened to music,
The death spiral averted.)
The best kid-free weekends are ones that are either
Planned far in advance:
Tickets bought and
Time booked (concerts, camping),
Or the spontaneously inspired ones:
Yoga classes together,
Playing cribbage and listening to music,
Even grocery shopping,
Just the two of us,
Feels like a date.
But the best parts
Are the moments when,
Undistracted by other people’s needs,
I’m fully attentive to my husband
As he’s talking.
And I realize
I haven’t seen him clearly
For weeks or even months;
Seen who he is,
Not what I need him to do next.
Is being away from
Our children
Worth those rarefied moments?
I don’t know.
It’s our life
And I’ll take it.

Grace

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The Skype window flickered on,

Revealing my boy and his dad

Granulated and dimmed by a

Few thousand miles of ether.

They were giggling together.

My boy on his dad’s lap in front of the computer

Trying to squirm away

The dad’s large hands

Gripping the narrow ribcage

The thick fingers digging in

For the tickle.

Both of them laughing

White teeth flashing.

“What are you monkeys doing?”

I asked,

Feigning disapproval.

My boy

Broke free and

Scampered to the other side of the room,

Where he stood panting and laughing,

Watching his dad.

Who said,

“Okay, it’s time to talk to Mom.”

The boy walked out of the room,

And his dad said,

Apologetically,

“He’s hungry.

He’s gonna have some ice cream in the kitchen.”

No tears for Mom,

No wails of longing,

Or I miss you.

Later,

Thinking about my boy

And our Skype time,

I was glad

That my boy is

Having fun

Without me.

I get it now.

That parent’s mantra:

“All I want is for you to be

Happy and safe.”

Incredible, the

Complex and paradoxical

Layers of

That kind of love.

That I could be happy and grateful

At the same time I’m

Sad and grieving.

When other parents say to me,

“I could never do what you do,

Be away from your child for months at a time.”

I always say with the assurance of

One who has experienced grace,

“Yes you could,

If you had to.

I hope you never have to.”

The hours before my boy leaves for the summer

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Six hours before my

Small boy’s

Plane leaves,

And he and I are at the zoo.

I’m always the one who wants to come here

Before he leaves for the summer with his dad.

“I don’t want to go to the zoo,” he says as we’re leaving the house,

But I don’t give him a choice.

The impervious rhythms of the animals

Are a comfort to me.

And anyway,

He likes the sharks and

The giraffes and

Buying lunch in the cafeteria and

Cotton candy from a cart,

And a small toy from the gift shop.

Today we were watching the snow monkeys when my

Chest tightened up like a drawstring.

Nine weeks, he’ll be gone.

The gestation period of a dog.

Today driving here, I thought

There must be other mothers who put their

Kids on airplanes for the summer,

Who dread the last days of the school year

(“Any fun plans for summer?” people ask.)

Who take extra pictures and videos,

Who think melodramatically:

“What if he dies while he’s gone?”

Before remembering:

“I suppose he could die here with me, too.”

I say cheerily,

“You’re going to have so much fun this summer!”

Smiling,

As a tear tracks down my face.

And he will.

He’s got his life over there, too.

I don’t share much in it,

And that’s okay.

He’s not mine, really, anyway.

It soothes me to think that

He’s a child of God out in the world,

And I’m one of his guides.

Among my many duties,

I take him places like the zoo,

And let other people take him places

Without me.

On airplanes even.

150th anniversary of Civil War; Also anniversary of first marriage

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Photo: civilwarhome.com

April 12.

In the throes of planning my

Second wedding.

I saw a headline about the

150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War,

Which reminded me:

Seven years ago,

Destination wedding in London.

Giggling,

Drunk,

In a London pub,

Over the fact that I was getting married on the

Date the first shots were fired on Fort Sumter.

Now,

With three weeks to go before I marry Joe,

It irritates me that I would be writing about my

First wedding.

The implication being that I’m somehow

Not over it.

(Although when you have kids together,

You never talk about “being over it.”

You just figure out how to

Get along day-by-day.)

In planning this wedding,

Joe and I both say it occasionally:

“At my first wedding…”

At first I cringed when I said it,

Or smiled apologetically at Joe,

Who was smiling apologetically at me.

Then it just became a joke.

The apologetic smile turned into a smirk.

We’re weathered.

We’ve lived.

We’re vintage.

Bought once new and discarded,

Only to turn up as a

Find

On the rack

By someone who

Gets

The little details:

The fine stitching,

The unusual buttons.

When you have kids together,

These exes will

Always

Be

Around.

Sometimes you wish they would

Go away.

(Or in a moment of face-twisting anger and fear,

Worse.)

But they

Never will.

Interactions with my ex are

Calm and even

Friendly

Now.

Still,

I can hope that April 12 someday signifies the

Start of the Civil War only,

Which it was long before

Me and my

Dramatics

Came along.

Call from school

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I got a call yesterday.

My son’s kindergarten teacher.

I, who work in an office with adults,

Always have to adjust to the elementary school rhythm

On calls from school.

They always start rushed,

As if I’m dropping into the middle of a conversation.

Ever since he got back from spring break,

My son has been acting up:

Not doing his work,

Not keeping his hands to himself.

He’d been doing so well,

Making so much progress.

What happened?

“Maybe it’s his dad

Leaving,” I say.

“Yeah, I was thinking about that,” his teacher says.

My son’s dad had come for spring break.

The two of them had had so much fun:

Going on a train trip to Washington DC.

My son still talking about

George Washington,

The Washington Monument,

Washington DC.

And now,

He was throwing dice across the room,

And sitting in front of a blank piece of paper

Refusing to write.

“After all the progress we’ve made,

I just don’t want to go backward,” his teacher says.

In my office,

My cell phone pressed against my hot face,

I promised to talk to my son,

And his teacher promised to keep me informed,

And we hung up,

A little team rooting for my son.

On the bike ride home,

Swerving through construction on University Avenue,

Dodging potholes and

Tented sidewalk slabs,

I was thinking of how we would

Not be going to McDonald’s playland,

As promised.

There would be consequences.

So I got home,

And there he was at the dining room table,

Flicking the longish hair out of his eyes.

He crumpled a styrofoam cup in his hand,

And I

Sat down across from him,

And we talked.

Because that’s all I can do.

I can’t go back.

I can’t heal his wounds

Or prescribe his experience.

His father is his father

And that father lives in another country.

And I’m his mom,

And I’m here.

And that’s both his gift and his trial.

I can only guide, my

Hand between his butterfly shoulder blades,

Sometimes light,

Sometimes heavy.

Here are some tools to put in your

Thomas the Train backpack, Buddy.

You’re on your way.

I love you.

Airport good-byes

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About to leave for the airport

You would think that the

Airport

Would be a devastating place for us:

For me, and my small boy,

And his dad.

The good-byes we say just outside security,

His dad or I knowing we won’t

Squeeze the small body

For months.

But,

If you thought the airport was,

For us,

A scene of tears and

Drama,

You would be wrong.

We made an unspoken

Pact,

His father and I,

To have fun at the airport.

We send him off

With fart-kisses on his stomach

And tickles around his neck

And swooping hugs.

And laughter.

On Sunday, it was his dad’s turn to say,

“See you soon,”

And go through security

Alone.

In three months,

It will be my turn to say

“See you soon,

When school starts again,

Buddy,”

And watch them go through security

Together.

I know from experience

That for me,

The tears come at the moment they disappear from view

Behind security,

Looking not back at me,

But forward toward their

Gate.

It wasn’t my turn to

Say good-bye today.

But when it is,

On the ride home

I will turn off the radio

And let the tears run.