STARTING FROM SCRATCH
Parenting is anything but normal after the death of a spouse
My middle child loves to go to the cemetery, even though, at seven, he is too young to have to visit his father’s grave.
His nine-year-old sister refuses to go. She doesn’t want to be sad, and she doesn’t want me to be sad.
But I think it’s important to go back to the place where, only four months ago, we placed their father’s body in the ground. What do I do when I don’t really know what I should do? I think I was probably like a lot of parents before my husband got sick last fall. I am a teacher, and I ran a decently tight ship at home. I tried to set limits, pushed my kids to attend activities they committed to even if they didn’t feel like going, and made sure we adhered to a schedule — and definitely a bedtime.
I am not the same parent my children had a few months ago. Grief has changed me. I can’t tell you how much television my kids watch on a daily basis, but I do know they can all quote lengthy passages from the Disney show Jessie. My middle kid was on a basketball team but once my husband got sick I stopped pushing him to go. We haven’t done a proper family dinner in months. I found a grief counsellor who works solely with kids. She was knowledgeable, kind and warm. But therapy was disruptive to the school day and after-school playtime. One day, my daughter said to me: “I don’t want to go. I like the therapist, but I feel fine. Can we just stop doing all this stuff, Mom? I just want to have a normal life.”
Before, it was easy to make a parenting decision, and when I did, my husband almost always agreed with me. Sometimes I was wrong. I was furious at my husband for taking our then almost-five-year-old to The Force Awakens, since I felt he was much too young. But seeing the original Star Wars movies was what my husband had done in the 1980s with his own dad, and it meant a lot to him. I’m glad he overrode me, because our son has that memory with his dad forever.
But now there’s just me, and it’s as though I have to start from scratch.
So what do I do when my four-year-old gets upset because I’m ignoring him and slams his bedroom door? This was once the cardinal sin in our house, and a definite timeout. I felt my anger flare, and I yelled his name. He immediately started crying and ran to me, screaming, “Mommy, mommy, mommy,” and buried his head in my lap. He wouldn’t let go. What am I supposed to do with this? Follow my old script, and tell him there are consequences for his actions? Or reach down and pull him close, reminding him that his mom loves him so much even when he messes up?
I wanted my children to be so many things: Good students, thoughtful friends, creative minds, amazing guitarists. I guess I still want all those things, in theory. But if I am honest, I want only two things: I want them to feel safe, and I want them to feel loved.
And so, my four-year-old got a hug that day, and he got to finish crying in my lap. This seems to be my new mode of parenting. Instead of encouraging my kids to work on a class project or practise an instrument, I often cuddle up with them on the couch, watching bad TV with three little heads on my lap. Instead of telling my children it’s bedtime, I lie down with them in their beds, watching them fall asleep and thinking about how much they all resemble their father.
It’s still shocking every morning to wake up without my husband next to me. But because I’m too tired to carry them back to their beds in the middle of the night, I wake up with our two little boys in his place. The symbolism of this is not lost on me. I’m still trying to figure out how to get my daughter to go to the cemetery.
I push a little each day. But I also pull her close, tell her she makes me and her father so proud, and remember that she and her brothers just need to feel two things. Safe and loved.