My Kids
I was languishing in my bathtub while simultaneously castigating myself for neglecting my writing and essay submissions. Pausing my internal rants, I grudgingly acknowledged that my creativity had been curtailed by the premature birth of my brand-new grandson. Anxiety over Jack’s month-early arrival and my daughter’s elevated liver enzymes from pre-eclampsia had managed to zap my creative instincts.
Since September 22nd, when my daughter, Tracy, was induced, the topic of motherhood has been top-of-mind for me. As my youngest child is currently forty-three, new motherhood is a long time removed for me. I adore my daughters-in-law, but I wasn’t as intimately involved in their pregnancies. My daughter has had baby fever for twenty years, but the absence of a father-candidate stymied that visceral urge. Her marriage two years ago to Charlie made this dream come true. I was lucky enough to be part of the weekly countdown and was regularly briefed on the latest pregnancy updates, which mostly consisted of comparing the baby to increasingly larger fruits and vegetables. Holding my 46-year-old daughter’s hand and stroking her back during contractions enabled me to share in the moment she transitioned from pre- to post-motherhood. Maybe it was because Tracy had been a part of my body that I experienced that newborn motherhood feeling all over again when her baby was born.
My daughter and grandson
An evening phone call with Tracy following our return to Chicagoland put me in that place again as I listened to her wonder at Jack’s improvement in the NICU unit. “He’s so sweet. I just love him so much. And Charlie is such a good dad,” she kvelled. It felt like a symphony was playing somewhere in the ether as I climbed into that space of joy with my girl.
Our conversation was interrupted that night by a call from my son who was driving with his son from Buffalo, New York, to Chicagoland. Driving long stretches is often a time when David calls me to analyze recent events. He and Ru, my grandson, had spent a weekend with his father, a second cousin, two of his three half-brothers, and a stepbrother. This gang of seven gathered for an annual pilgrimage to Buffalo to attend a Buffalo Bills NFL game. Jim–former husband, although my current husband’s name is also Jim–inflicted his passion for the Bills on to his many sons. My son is now in the process of sharing this contagion with his own children. Jim–first Jim, not second Jim–managed to create generations of consistently disappointed football fans.
The Boys’ Pilgrimage to Buffalo and Niagara Falls
“The weekend was filled with missed opportunities on Dad’s part,” David reported during our late-night phone call. “This once-a-year gathering of people he loves, in a setting that is primal to him (Jim #1 grew up in Niagara Falls), gathered to celebrate a team he has supported for more than sixty years, and what does he do? He sleeps, complains, reads, and generally checks out. It’s so frustrating.” “Did you talk to him about your frustrations?” I asked. “You can explain things to Dad, but you can’t understand them for him,” replied my son.
David is a psychologist and has devoted the last twenty years to understanding human motivations and behaviors. His father’s behaviors, however, have continued to baffle and wound him. Perhaps his father’s inability to connect has motivated David to nurture his connections with his own children. This was nine-year-old Ru’s third year joining this testosterone ladened group’s attendance at a Bill’s worship service. He was contentedly playing Mine Craft on his Nintendo Switch in the back seat of the family’s Toyota Sienna, secure in the assurance of his father’s driving skills as they traveled through the waning evening through three states–New York, Ohio, and Indiana–during the eight hours it took to reach their Chicagoland home state. I flashed back to Ru’s birth. A phone call at 3:00 a.m. from a sobbing son alerted me to Ru’s early arrival. “Katie is in labor. Her parents came to get Maya (older sister) who was screaming as they took her away. Katie is in so much pain and terrified that the doctor won’t give her an epidural”. I reassured him Katie and Maya would be fine and that I was booking a flight to Chicago and would be at the hospital by mid-afternoon.
Ru’s birth day
There was no such scramble necessary for Maya’s birth. “Mom, Katie could have the baby any day now. I think you should come on up,” David urged on January 11, 2015, his voice betraying his anxiety about becoming a father for the first time. “Of course, honey”, I said, reaching for my Southwest app, thankful for the North Face heavy coat I’d recently purchased in anticipation of the January birth of my first granddaughter. Maya, however, had other plans and delayed her arrival by eight days. Had I known that January 20 would be her birth date, I would have returned home to Orlando to retrieve extra clothes and my laptop. Instead, each morning, I visited the front desk to request another day’s reprieve from my impending departure. They were only too happy to charge me for the extra day.
“Mom, I’m going to have to jump off”, David interrupted my memories. “Ru has to go to the bathroom, and I’m getting off at the next exit.” “Glad you aren’t making him hold it,” I praised, remembering the long drives with my father who was recalcitrant about allowing pit stops.
It was midnight by the time my conversations concluded. The quiet gave me a chance to savor the moment and reflect on my conversations. On one hand, I was reveling in the privilege of sharing in my son’s fatherhood and daughter’s brand-new motherhood experiences, so grateful for our connection. On the other hand, I thought back to my bathtub castigations (mentioned above) when I berated myself for neglecting my writing life in lieu of caring for loved ones. That struggle to balance family life with our professional and personal lives doesn’t end. If we could peer into the future to see all the heavy lifting, sleepless nights, and empty wallets, would we commit to parenthood? I quickly answered my rhetorical question with a resounding yes. Two people I love most in the world invite me in to share the most sacred spaces of their lives. That profound connection is the secret sauce of existence, transforming sacrifice into pure magic. Imparting this newfound parental wisdom will be fodder for a future late-night conversation with my kids.