I snap a photo of Ellie
in the midst of an open mouthed laugh, her inexplicably gold-blonde hair and
blue eyes beaming joy across the room. Someone told me that parents aren’t
happier than non-parents but only parents experience short bursts of sheer
bliss. I am grateful and sad. Her grandfather would have been her biggest fan.
After all, he was mine until he died on the morning after my eighth birthday.
Ellie grins. She’s
wearing her chess tournament t-shirt over her clothes. At five, she still has
that confidence I lost so long ago I can’t even remember what it felt like. It
seems selfish to be jealous of my own child. Both her parents are here sharing
the day that’s all hers. I’m terrified that I’ll die before she can
really know me.
While Ellie was practicing
for her first tournament with my husband, she lost countless games. 80% of the
time, she reached a straight robot arm across the board and said,
“Congratulations.” Her father said, “Good game. Play again?” But the rest of
the time, games ended in truly spectacular displays of poor sportsmanship. Ellie
would flip the board over, run crying and screaming from the board, slam her
bedroom door, and wail. She’d flail for the longest ten minutes a parent can
endure.
One of these
times, after letting her cry just long enough to communicate that “we don’t
behave like this,” I slipped into her room, sat on her purple rag rug and
pulled her into the space created by my criss-cross-applesauced legs. She
curled into a ball, letting me hold her like an infant until the wave of rage
flowed out from her amygdala to her toes. The force of her feelings leaves me
dumbfounded. As violent as her emotions are, she lets them flow. It’s
petrifying to me who has spent well more than the 10,000 hours of deliberate practice
required to master squashing emotional reactions.
I waited for her to quiet and then she asked the question she always asks when she’s a little embarrassed. She asked, “Can you tell me about a time you lost a game with your Daddy?”
“Sure. I was about your age and we were playing checkers. He always won at checkers. I got so mad, I crushed my own finger when I slammed the door. Unless I could calm down he wouldn’t play with me anymore.”
“Did you play again later?”
“I learned to calm
down and we played again.”
“And your finger
got better?”
“Yes, my finger
got better.” I stifled a giggle.
“And then you
won?”
“Well, no. You see
my father was a very good checkers player. I never beat him.”
“Never?”
“Nope. Never.”
“Then he died?”
“Well, not right
after a checkers game but, yes he died before I ever got good enough to beat
him.”
Ellie stared at
me. I wondered what was happening behind her azure gaze. She returned from her
lizard brain. Instantly calm and in-charge, her hyper-sense of justice
kicked-in.
“Mommy, that’s not
fair.”
“No it isn’t. But
life isn’t always fair, you just have to do the best you can with what you
have.” Every time we talk about how life isn’t fair, I have to shove my own
disappointment into the box under my sternum. That’s where I save my feelings
for later. Without that box, I don't think I could survive these conversations.
I have to be here for her, to be her mother. Feeling whatever comes over me or
remembering anything that could awaken grief would be to fail her. It’s easier
when we don’t talk. Teaching a child a lesson you never had the chance to finish learning is its own challenge. She gave me a fast hug
and hopped to standing.
“Can I play
against you? I think you might not be as good as Daddy.”
“Sure.” I hope she
has a chance to beat me before I die. And just like that, I find myself sitting
behind a chess board, playing black, losing to a five-year-old.
No comments:
Post a Comment