in the last post, I referenced how clearly adah remembers her last interaction with grandma bonnie.
it was the day that michael jackson died. i remember this because I was at the north portland library picking up a few books and I was amazed that about 15 minutes after his death, the librarians already had a display of books about him. librarians are magicians. but anyway, while i was there, i got a frantic call from bonnie, who was leaving for a quaker conference in virginia the next morning. In the great bonnie tradition, she had a million things to pack and do before she left, and she wondered if I could drop adah off to see a bean house they recently built. this was, for a couple reasons, a big inconvenience to me. i was at the library, adah was at home with anne preparing dinner for a lot of guests, and it was almost bedtime-- a time during which i am notoriously inflexible and committed, and sometimes need to be committed.
so grandma bonnie drove over to our house, ran into the kitchen, and proceeded to explain to bug where she was going and when they would get to see each again. they counted the tuesdays on their fingertips and bonnie told her that she loved her more than all the ice cream cones in the world, which almost made adah gasp. is that possible? yep.
so tuesday rolled around-- adah and bonnie’s special day together--and when adah asked about bonnie, we counted again on our fingers when she’d be coming back. but two days later, on thursday the 2nd, alex called with the horrible news: bonnie was riding a bike (to get in shape for a climate ride she was doing with alex and laura in September to raise money and awareness about global warming) and was killed by a truck on the virginia tech campus. irreversible. unfathomable. no more counting on the fingers. we had to tell bug that grandma bonnie was never coming back.
how children process grief is both mysterious and evident, but adah did seem to understand this: that when you love someone, sometimes they leave and never come back, and there seemed to be a direct correlation between this awareness and how she behaved a few mornings later when i tried to drop her off at a summer camp and leave her there, like by herself. she had been to this camp before, it was full of kids she was familiar with, and she would not let me go. with the support of a few other parent friends who assured me she’d stop crying a few minutes after i left, i tried to go. her wailing was so dramatic, though, that I hid in the parking lot for awhile to see if she would recover. after almost a full half hour, she was still screaming. her inability to cope was way beyond my comfort level, so I went back and got her. she has spent the last several weeks attached to my kneecaps, and has been following me everywhere, including to the toilet and to the shower which makes the days extreeeeeeemly long, and is making me nuts. she is terrified of me leaving.
am I reading too much into it? at first I thought it might be a combination of her being a little more attached since I’ve been home for the summer, and she recently stopped nursing, but there seemed to be a clear association between the news of bonnie’s death and her death grip on me. i’m talking regularly clawing on my clothes. it’s worrisome.
to anyone who’s reading ( which is who, by the way?), do you have any advice?
5 comments:
no advice.
first thank you for posting about you and adah and bonnie here. laura had told me the sad news a couple weeks back. i am so sorry. and i just appreciate you sharing this one piece of how it is affecting you and ya'll.
i am always telling parents, that their child will be fine and stop crying when they leave and i am always telling children that their parent will be back at the end of the day, even though i can't be sure that either are true.
i think that i do believe that because loss is real and possible, it is useful for the children i work with to see that even though one of the people who is most important to them in the world has left the room, that there are other people who will care about them and pay attention to them. while it is impossible a lot of the time, i do think that my job is to pay attention to a child that is crying because they are sad, pissed, scared, that they've just been dropped off in my care, until they don't need my attention anymore. oh... if i only had one child in my care how much more realistic that would be.
that said, i don't think "tough love" is an option that makes any kind of sense.
it seems really reasonable that adah would not want to let you out of her sight. it is also reasonable that you would need to be out of her sight, sometimes. it seems like the ideal learning would be we don't, none of us, know that the people we love and need the most will be always available, but that maybe love and attention are actually abundant, and we get to be confident that we can find safe sure ways of surrounding ourselves with that love and attention.
the tough love 9-6 day care provider in me says... you get a minute to yourself.... just take it. and if adah is really pissed, scared, etc well you'll just have to experience that after you've had your minute. (chances are you'll end up having your own scared and pissed feelings... which is all the more reason you get to have that minute to yourself... make it two.)
i love you!
oh, dear ones. i'm reading. like jonathan, the only way i can begin my response to these posts is to thank you for sharing them.
maybe that's how i end my response, too. i have great compassion, but not many words right now.
love to all 3 of you.
jojo
Listen to yourself, as an intuitive mama you know what to do. I love ya Meg!
Dear one, thanks for writing so richly about our family and your own struggles. It is true the little ones are tough, sometimes more so than us, and the magic, if some can be found is her walking through this with your compassion. Do take care of yourself, she can hang on me anytime. l, ac
This post is so beautiful and poignant. My heart aches for you, for Adah, for your whole huge family. xo xo
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