The Village People

I’ll dispense with the self criticism about how long it has been since I have written here, and instead confess that the impetus for starting again is the guest post I wrote for my friend Kristi’s new blog that will be accompanied by a link to this one when it is published sometime soon.

The timing couldn’t be worse, really, because I don’t like to be a whiner. But I am sick. And in my still-newish life as a sole parent, few things get me down more than being sick. A pox on the houses of my coworkers who have been coming to the office and spreading their filthy upper respiratory crud.

My eyes are burny and watery and twitchy, I’m hot and cold all at once, my head is pounding and I want my mom to make me some soft-boiled eggs. I want to lay on the couch and watch the televised results of paternity tests. I want another adult living here, because although I boldly declared myself off-mom-duty three hours ago, I eventually took pity on Critter and boiled some frozen ravioli for dinner.

Yet for all of my whining, I’m really not alone. A friend’s offer to go to the drug store or pick up groceries or just visit brought tears to my eyes. When I told Critter she was on her own tonight and she asked me how she’d get dinner, I told her that calling Kristi was probably her best bet. I was kidding, but it’s true – with one call, she could have been eating a far better dinner with far better company. In fact, she could knock on the doors of several neighbors and easily scrounge up dinner on any given day.

I am so grateful for the family of friends we have found here in Tampa. I’ve been using the term “sole parent” because “single parent” sounds more like a marital status than a state of being. I think, though, that I need to come up with something new, something that involves the word “village.”

Three tickets to paradise

Sometime in the last 10 months, I have developed an odd sense of entitlement. It's odd mostly because I have lived my entire life lacking a sense of entitlement, even to things to which I was clearly entitled.

Now, though, I feel strongly that the girls and I somehow deserve some peace. We have been through enough and now need to coast for a while, thank you very much.

As last week's Caribbean vacation approached, I put a lot of stock into the trip. I saw it as a turning point - a chance to breathe, to feel lighter, to move forward. I could feel the pink sand beneath my feet and the cool umbrella drink in my hand. I could see the girls frolicking nearby with new friends. I could feel our collective sense of relief.

The trip got off to a great start. We arrived at the resort with our friends and were welcomed by a large group of impossibly enthusiastic staff. Our room was awesome - not only did each of us have her own bed, but the girls actually had a separate bedroom. The pool sparkled and the sea beckoned.

The next day, Critter was sick to her stomach for a few hours. She recovered pretty quickly. The next day I was sick, and it knocked me out for two days (I will never again use the phrase projectile vomiting lightly). When I recovered, Critter got it again, worse the second time. Our physical woes were set against a backdrop of broken air conditioning and a malfunctioning toilet in the room, along with animated but empty promises that they would be fixed immediately. We visited the kind doctor in the resort infirmary, who filled us full of meds and advised us to only eat white rice, plain pasta, boiled potatoes and bananas for the rest of the week.

Pickle hit a low point when Critter started her second bout of illness. I broke down in tears after the fifth cheerful promise that the air conditioning would be fixed. We deserved to be having a perfect vacation, and damn it, this was not it.

Despite it all, though, we really did have a good time. We spent a lot of time together and with our friends. We made some wonderful new friends. We floated weightlessly in crystal clear water. Critter swung from a trapeze and Pickle drank her weight in smoothies.

I do believe we have become experts in making lemonade out of life's lemons. Next time, though, I will make my lemonade with bottled water.

Never turn your back on the sea

S and I took Critter to the beach for the first time when she was about six months old. From my position on the beach chair holding a sleeping baby, I saw him diving into the water over and over. I thought he was looking for sand dollars. It went on for a really long time, calling my sand dollar theory into question. I motioned for him to come to us, and he motioned back to wait a minute, then kept diving. Finally, he came to the beach and told me he had lost his wedding band. He was so upset that he didn’t want to leave the beach that day. The ring had always been too big, and he was kicking himself for not having it sized. I told him it was just a thing, and we could get a new one.

A couple of weeks ago, I took care of my friends’ three kids while they took a fabulous trip to Seattle. Laboring under the delusion that I had superpowers, I decided to take all four children to the beach. When we had been there for a few hours and I was starting to feel like it was too hot and too sunny and everyone was too hungry, Critter came out of the surf sobbing.  She had lost her ring, the ring S gave her. I didn’t even dive down to look for it – she didn’t know where she was when it fell off, and I didn’t want to give her false hope. So we sat at the edge of the water and I held her while we both cried. I told her the story of S’s wedding band and how we were in the same spot when it was lost, so it was kind of nice to think that the two rings were together in the sea.  The other kids didn’t know what to do – one went away, the other hovered (the third is only two years old, so he continued to fill his bucket with water and dump it out over and over).

We packed up, rinsed off and headed for home. Critter perked up in the car. When she got into bed that evening, though, the tears came again. She was holding a charm that she said allowed her one wish. I asked what her wish would be and she said, “You think I’d want the ring back, but I don’t. I want Dad back.” 

And that is how my baby started grieving.

Get out!

Very soon after S’s death, people started talking to me about dating. The first was a woman named Heidi from the Social Security Administration. I was on a long phone call with her, setting up benefits for the kids. There were some lulls in the official business as she waited for the computer system to respond, so we got a little chatty.

“When you’re ready to get back out there, you better get yourself a big ol’ can of clown spray,” she advised me. “Because there’s a lot of clowns out there!”

Really? I had just given her my husband’s date of death, and it was only about 10 days ago at that point.

Next was the attorney who was helping me set up my will, trust, power of attorney, etc. I think he’s only about 15 years older than me, but a bit of an anachronism. He uses carbon paper.

“You’re a cute girl. You’ll marry again,” he said with conviction.

At 42 and newly widowed, I can hardly be considered a cute girl by any standard. Nevertheless, he told me that when I marry again, I will need a prenuptial agreement. And on a personal note, he told me how to select my next mate.

“You don’t want to be his nurse and you don’t want to be his purse.”

My reaction to these early transgressors was to mentally stick my fingers in my ears and say, “la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la.”

When my therapist raised the issue, I couldn’t really do that – they frown on that sort of thing in therapy. So I told her that I wasn’t opposed to the idea in theory, eventually, but was far from being able to imagine it in practice.

Now that almost three months have passed, the limits of my imagination stretch to the point of being able to envision eating dinner at a restaurant with someone who doesn’t always order chicken fingers and fries. So far that person is faceless, and might well be a girlfriend. I just know that sometime soon, for my kids' sake and my own, I need to get out.

Opting Out of Christmas

On Christmas, it will be exactly three months since S died. Right before Thanksgiving, I had a realization: I cannot participate in Christmas this year, at least not in the way I usually do. Not in the baking-shopping-crafting-FedExing-oh-my-god-will-they-like-this-birdfeeder way. So, without agonizing over it, I unilaterally opted out of all of that. I hope everyone will understand.

I did all of my shopping for the girls in a 15-minute spree on Amazon. I haven’t baked a single cookie, folded a single paper star ornament or fought for a single parking space at the mall. I haven’t festooned a damned thing.

I have spent time with friends, giggled with my daughters and taken long bubble baths. I have thought so much about the promise of the new year and so little about making sure the Ice Moose is always full of homemade cookies. And somehow, against all odds, I feel far better than I usually do five days before Christmas.

Rarely do I make decisions with such absolute certainty. I’m not a big risk taker and I tend to noodle over things until even the best ideas wilt under the scrutiny. Looking back to the times I’ve felt so certain, though, I realize that my instincts are pretty good – the best decisions I’ve ever made never involved lists of pros and cons.

I don't think my daughters will remember the year their dad died as "the one where Mom didn't put ribbons on any of our presents, and the tags didn't even match the paper!" My hope is that their memory will be more sweet than bitter, because we know he's no longer suffering, because we have each other and because we have the most amazing family and friends anyone could ask for.