I will find my way back.

I sit at the dining room table and stare out at  the newly falling snow. The sky is dark gray and heavy. The snow is falling at the rate of an inch an hour. I am exhausted. Exhausted of this winter without end. I think about putting on the mukluks and heading out to shovel, I know the snow is light, fluffy, all I would have to do is push it back and forth across the driveway. I can't do it. I am riding a wave of  apathy that landed on me Monday night and has taken up residence in everything I do.

Then there is this: Last week I had the opportunity to fill in for my daughter and take my youngest grand-daughter to pre-school class. Although this is something I very much enjoy it is an outing filled with dangerous mine-fields. The way the class works is this. You arrive at school and "play". The Parent and/or Grandparent inter-acts with the child in whatever the child chooses to do that day. At this I am a rock-star. My Grand-daughter cruises around the room with a built-in playmate....me. We set up the play-house and my grand-daughter arranges the furniture while I sit on my hands and make an effort not to re-arrange what she has done. A sofa in the bathroom? Why not. We move on to the crafts of the day, which are all very clever but again my need to over- involve myself must be monitored. After devoting roughly 2 minutes to each of the crafts we again find ourselves in the toy area putting together a 15 piece puzzle that she gives up on and I struggle to finish. She is  in her element. This is her place. She loves showing me everything she thinks I know nothing about. For both of us tho, the clock is ticking. The class ends in a way neither of us is looking forward to. The students break away from the adults and have "snack" and "independence". The adults move to a different room and have "parenting" discussion. I know for my grand-daughter this is an area of stress. She has told me continually on the way in to school. She has asked for repeated re-assurance that I will not leave the building. She asks where I will be, do I know how to find my way back to her and wonders if I would just "stay and have snack with her". She has no idea just how appealing that idea is. In my job of "role-modeling" independence tho I assure her I will "find my way back" and then I leave with all the young parents. The parent discussion group follows the same rules of every single grief group that I have attended. What is shared there is sacred, not to be discussed outside of group. The difference lies in perspective. Although I have been to grief groups that are occasionally visited by someone who is 15 or 20 years past the day they wish they could forget, for the most part everyone there is on a level playing field of pain. When I attend a parent meeting as a guest a generation older I spend the entire time trying to be quiet. What I could  add to the discussion, these young people have not yet lived.

This is what I know: Five years ago when I first attended a "parent discussion" group the topic of discussion was "Keeping your children safe". I cannot even tell you how hard I had to work to keep my mouth shut. Mike's death was not even two years old and that topic to me was all about" missed opportunity's, what ifs, and what the hells". The young parents were thinking of safety on a day to day, inside their houses and cars way of thinking. I was thinking of it in a "doesn't matter what you do, you can"t" kind of thinking. The group was rather large and I was able to avoid the teachers eye for most of the discussion. When she focused in on  me, I claimed "no comment". My second go around with the Parent group was two years ago. On this day the topic was Parenting Technique and how you support your spouse with the decisions that are made on a daily basis. Again, a generation gap. I listened to stories of Co-Parenting, a term of today, not widely used in the 70's and 80's. Marty and I co-parented by him working his ass off 12 hours a day and me making and doing every parenting decision alone. Again, I claimed "no comment".
The topic of the parent group this past week was "keeping your marriage sound" and because Valentines Day was right around the corner, what do you do to honor your spouse and Valentines Day itself.  This was the one parent meeting where I was not going to get a free "no comment" pass. Due to extreme weather conditions the group that day was small. The parent group consisted of me and one other Dad. The bright side for my Grand-daughter was that because the group was so small we remained right in the classroom where she could and did keep her eye on me the entire time. The classroom teacher is a wonderful woman that I actually worked beside for many years. I know her well. The young Dad was a man I have known for several years, someone I have dealt with on a Professional level and have nothing but respect for. For whatever reason, I got called on to go first. For the briefest of moments I debated going with something easy and made-up. Something about time together and focusing on each other, maybe throw in some flowers and candy, because I write and it might be true, talk about poetry and long heart-felt discussions. I did none of that. I took the road of truth. My truth. When asked about keeping our marriage sound this is what I said. "In October, we will be married 40 years. We hold on. We don't quit." Regarding Valentines Day I said," I am not a big believer. I buy a card that will never say enough." Although I imagine these aren't the words the teacher was hoping to hear, the young dad was nodding his head and saying yes. I like to think that sometimes experience trumps Hallmark that maybe if young couples knew that all the cards, jewelry, and candy in the world won't be enough to save you on the days when "it doesn't matter what you do, you can't" come into your life, maybe then just maybe they would focus more on learning to "hold on" and "not quit".
There is a quote in the 2010 movie "The Kids are All Right" that probably should be placed on a Hallmark card but for obvious reasons will never make the cut. I am going to advise you of a language alert. Proceed at your own caution. "Bottom line is...marriage is hard......just two people slogging though the shit, year after year, getting older, changing. It's a f*****g marathon, okay? So, sometimes, you know, your together for so long, that you just...You stop seeing the other person. You just see weird projections of your own junk. Instead of talking to each other, you go off the rails and act grubby...." End Quote.
The apathy that has settled over me these past days is hard. it takes me back to the days when every thought I had was filled with pain. I have learned to "sit" with it. I no longer manically try to forge ahead.
Last week I watched the video on-line that has gone viral. The little guy in his car seat, eyes closed, weeping to "Say Something" by A Great Big World. For me, this child is the hope of every generation. Someone who feels the words of heartbreak and is willing to "sit with it". When his Dad asks him if he should change the channel, the child whispers "No". When asked for a signal he is all-right. The child goes with two thumbs up.
I have a one year window of attending more parent groups and then my youngest grand-daughter will head off to kindergarten. I sometimes wonder if the parent discussion would be better served by having the pre-school kids as part of it. We would all sit down together and rather than sing the name song we allow the kids to show us how to "sit with" emotion. They will show us how when over-whelmed we are not to turn the channel and that  it is OK to cry, with two thumbs up.

till next time.