Last night, on our final night in Louisiana, I came into our bedroom to find Nora lying in her little mattress on the floor, staring at the ceiling, scowling — this, a half-hour after we’d put her to bed.
“What’s wrong, baby?” I said.
“Nothing.”
“No, something is wrong. Are you upset?”
“No.”
“Are you sad?”
“No!”
I laid down on the floor next to her mattress, and put my head next to hers.
“Is this because you love your family down here?”
“Yes!” she cried, and threw her right arm around my neck, buried her head in my neck and wept.
So it was a hard goodbye after a great week, a week that ended with a family reunion of all the cousins, hosted by our cousins Andy and Nancy. This week was about the kids getting to visit with Aunt Ruthie, and seeing that even though she’s really, really sick, she’s still Aunt Ruthie. Lucas, pictured above in a tearful final embrace with Ruthie before we drove to the airport this morning, is the one of my three children who is closest to his aunt. He is six years old. Not a night goes by that he doesn’t ask his mother or his father about Aunt Ruthie, and cancer, and whether or not she’s going to live. In Louisiana this past week, every morning he woke up early and ran to the road to get the morning paper, and deliver it to her. He spent every spare moment at her house. This morning he asked his mother and me if he could take Ruthie her paper. Fine with us, we told him, but Aunt Ruthie might be sleeping, so be careful.
“OK,” he said. “I’ll just open the door and put the paper inside the door.”
To our great lack of surprise, the boy didn’t come home for an hour. Ruthie told me on the phone tonight that this morning, he padded softly down the hall to her darkened bedroom, newspaper in hand, and poked his head in. “He told me that he listens to hear if I’m coughing, and if he does, he knows I’m awake,” she said. “He brings me my paper, asks if I want a Popsicle, anything I want. My buddy takes care of me.”
This morning he climbed into bed with her again, and stayed close for as long as he could. I know that sweet boy well: he’s thinking that if he can be there to take care of her, nothing bad will happen.
That kid is golden. All my kids are. All my family is.
UPDATE: I put him to bed about an hour ago, him sobbing and keening, “Why did we have to leave?! I want to stay there. I love them so much,” etc.
There is nothing more tender or more pure than the love of a child.
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posted June 22, 2010 at 8:28 pm
Better than gold, I’d say, Rod.
posted June 22, 2010 at 9:18 pm
God bless the Drehers and Lemings!
posted June 22, 2010 at 9:33 pm
God bless you all. Our family prays for your family every night!
posted June 22, 2010 at 10:51 pm
Your children are joy, Rod.
(captcha: the wrenched – sounds like it would describe their feelings pretty well)
posted June 23, 2010 at 12:13 am
Offering prayers for your family.
I think that one of the hardest things to deal with in terms of modern living and its mobility is the toll it can take on family. The economic reality that people have to go where the jobs are is not something to take lightly, but there’s a price we pay in terms of family, especially extended family, that’s not always easy to deal with. Ultimately we end up sacrificing some of our rootedness in exchange for financial necessity, but that’s not a choice people ought to have to make to the degree modern people often do.
posted June 23, 2010 at 8:05 am
Another beautiful essay, Rod. I hope that pictured embrace isn’t final, in the sense that I hope your boy will have many more chances to see his aunt.
Erin, I see the issue of division differently than you do. It’s the size of our country, not modernity, that affects geographic separation and has for centuries. Pioneer families who moved out west were even more separated from their families back east than people are now. With far fewer opportunities than we have now to stay in touch, much less hear their voices or see them. They coped with what must have been great loneliness because they had no choice, it was what they had to go through in the world they lived in. The big size of America affected that, not the modern age. Our greater mobility makes it easier for people logistically to go where the jobs are. But technology such as Skype makes it possible for them to stay in touch in ways our ancestors never would have dreamed of.
And, of course, in other nations, some people were and still are separated from their families involuntarily due to authoritarian governments which lock one side in and the other out. As wrenching as it is to be physically far from those we love sometimes, at least we know we have the freedom to get on a plane and go see them, that no governmental forces stand between them and us to cut off contact. Of course, those are points we adults keep in mind. Children, with their huge capacity to love and their great capacity for hope, have a different and often touching view of separation.
All my best to you and yours, Rod.
posted June 23, 2010 at 12:27 pm
In 27 years of parenthood (the age of our eldest, R), the hardest thing I had to do was walk the path of loss with a child. R was just over 4 years old when my mother passed away, and it took her about a full year to process it and come to grips with it in the abstract sense. Later in her life, as close friends moved away, I could see (and hear) her working out the sense and feeling of a person “going away” in the permanent sense.
As much as I can offer you sympathy as a friend, Rod, it is my admiration for your and Julie’s dealing with this as you have shared with us, working through the wildly different perspectives that children of different ages have, that I wish to emphasize. Preparing our children to deal with these things is the hardest, most thankless part of parenting, and in my view the most important.
posted June 23, 2010 at 1:50 pm
Posts like this show how paltry the most bitter disagreements on politics or even ethics are in the face of the true first things.
You and your sister are truly blessed to have such a family and such friends.
I have and will almost certainly never meet any of you, but through this blog you have touched so many hearts and souls – and though as a person without your faith I cannot pray I can hope for you all.
posted June 23, 2010 at 5:36 pm
Very sweet, Rod. Savor the moments and the memories. We’re blessed to have our oldest son home this week. He’s a recent college grad, soon to be married, and will live with his wife just a few hours away, but I can’t tell you how terribly my wife and I miss him, as well as our daughter who has married and moved away. They were young and in our care for too short a time. Last night as I gazed at my dear son I was struck by how it seemed just moments ago I held him in the palm of my hand. He makes me so proud, but the passing of time is bittersweet, indeed, and a life time isn’t long enough.
Sincerely,
Mike