Resiliency

Traveling with your kid is a very different experience.  For those of you who have done it, you know what I am saying.  With a child in tow, the experiences are magnified, both good and bad.  Over the last couple of days, we have had a couple of bad ones.

 

Maggie has been playing with her imaginary friends quite a bit lately.  Only in this case, her friends aren’t so imaginary.  They just aren’t here.  While she gets to see a bunch of new things, play in a bunch of new places, and run around outside all the time, the reality is, she doesn’t have her friends.  Thus, we have our not so imaginary friends, Henry and Anna.  Two great friends of hers from Telluride who we left behind.

 Yesterday, Maggie was thrilled to discover a small green bug that was hanging out in her bunk.  She even called me over to see it.  “What’s he doing?” she asked.  “I think he is just hanging out and visiting you,” I said.  This was a moment like any of the thousands of small and curious moments you enjoy with your kids when you spend every waking hour with them.  Only it wasn’t ordinary for her.

 Later in the day, Maggie went back to her bunk to look for her little green friend.  Only he wasn’t there.  When she went asked where he went, I said innocuously “he probably just went away.”  This was not the right thing to say.  The next thing you know, she is staring at us, hyperventilating, with crocodile tears pouring down her face.  When she finally gasps enough air to speak, she wails: “BUT IT’S NOT OKAY TO LEAVE!  IT’S NOT OKAY WHEN PEOPLE LEAVE AND DON’T COME BACK!  IT’S NOT OKAY TO LEAVE ANNA AND HENRY!  I MISS THEM!  I WANT TO GO HOME!”

 Next thing I know, it feels like I am standing there, looking at someone holding my heart in front of me after they just removed it from my body with a spoon.  You feel like the worst parent in the world.  Like you let your child down to pursue this dream of yours.

 Then, we calm her down, she calls her best friend on the phone, talks to her in that semi-coherent stream of consciousness talk that 31/2 year olds use.  She has a cup of milk, some bedtime stories, and she is fast asleep.  Today, she looks at us as we are sitting around the dinner picnic table and says with a 1000 watt smile:  “Mom, Dad, as long as we are together, we can go anywhere and live in Francine.” 

 I read a book once that contained interviews with the Dali Lama.  The author described how when the Dali Lama was told some very sad news, he could visually see the pain and sadness wash over the Dali Lama, who then felt it, remembered it, and let it go.  This is what I thought of with Maggie.  She experienced the emotions of sadness, of loneliness, completely, and then when the time was right, she let them go and moved on.  That is resiliency.  If you watch closely enough, your child can teach you something about how to live your life every day.