The Goodbye

The Ogre left yesterday.

He couldn’t get a flight out until after the holiday weekend, so we spent a lovely last few days together. But it had to end, and yesterday it did.

We pulled up to the unloading zone at Love Field and he got out, grabbed his bag, and extended his hand to help Sienna get out. I watched as he picked her up and held her tight. She was sobbing, her whole body shaking and her arms wrapped tightly around his neck. Her long, tanned, childish legs were wrapped around his waist. He held her firmly with one arm and stroked her blond hair with his other hand as she cried.

I could tell that this was no easier for him than it was for us. He put his forehead to hers and talked in a low voice about when he’d be coming back for visits, how they would play chess every night, how he would call her in just a few hours. I felt perilously close to tears myself, but then I bizarrely remembered a scene from Rilla of Ingleside, in which Jem goes off to war. 

I can’t remember all the details of the scene, but the gist of it is that Jem is leaving, along with a few other boys from the village, and the mother and sisters of one boy are crying, wailing and weeping loudly. Our heroine, Rilla, feels contempt for them for not putting the needs of their son/brother ahead of their own emotions. She and her mother and sisters tell Jem goodbye stoically, smiling, in good spirits, never letting one tear drop, because they know that Jem is off to face great dangers and weeping and wailing will only make him feel worse. They all cry afterward, but at the moment of goodbye they put on a brave face for Jem.

When we first arrived at the airport I felt like crying myself, and even more strangely I felt like I should cry. Like not crying would make it seem as if I were heartless and didn’t care that my husband was leaving. But when the memory of that scene flashed through my head, I knew that what the Ogre needed of me was similar to what Jem needed from his mother and sisters. He’s not off to war, but he is off to face hours and hours of studying, qualifying exams, teaching, and worst of all, no family. All those unbroken hours will be good for his academic career but will take a toll on his spirit. He loves us. He loves spending time with the kids. More so than me, he’s willing to lay on the floor for hours and let them crawl all over him. He has the patience to play long, uninterrupted games of chess with Sienna. The next six months, however hard they’ll be on me, will be even more difficult for him. And the last thing he needed yesterday was a weeping wife clinging to him. How much more difficult would it have been for him to leave if he didn’t feel like I could keep it together? If he thought that I would be lost without him?

And so I steeled myself and kissed him with a smile on my face. In a remarkable show of self-control, I drove back to my parents house without letting one tear drop. I talked with Sienna, reassured her, and then went on about my day.

The truth is, in many ways, I am lost without the Ogre. What is a mother without a father? It’s like half of a whole. I don’t work well alone. Our family is incomplete without him.

But he needs me to step up right now. He needs me to spend those hours on the floor, to be patient, to take the time with Sienna that he usually takes. And so do the kids. The Ogre is our rock, our foundation. And I can’t fall apart without him. I just can’t. For their sake and for his, I have to be the parent that I’ve never been before. The stable one. The sane one. The one that doesn’t fall apart, lose control, or lock herself in the bathroom to cry.

In the past, the prospect of having so much pressure on me would have caused me to fall apart immediately. But strangely, this time it has a calming effect. I don’t know if I’ve actually just gone numb from the shock of the Ogre leaving or if there is some latent mature woman inside me, but I actually feel….prepared to face this. I know I’ll have moments when I lose it. I know I won’t always be perfect. But as much as I will miss my husband, I don’t feel as frightened as I thought I would. I even feel…dare I say it?…confident in my ability to hold our family together while my husband is taking care of business. There is even a small, perhaps slightly insane part of me that is looking forward to seeing what I’ll learn during this time.

For instance, the Ogre has always taken the night shift. Always. He stays up, walks, bounces, sings, and generally does whatever necessary to get the baby of the moment to sleep. I take the morning shift, which sometimes happens excruciatingly early, and let him sleep in. This system has worked for us for a while, but ever since we’ve decided to seriously put ourselves on a schedule, it’s become clear that this is a flawed system. The children need to be trained to go to sleep and to sleep through the night. Period. And now, with the Ogre gone, I have even more reason to tackle the sleep situation. I don’t do coaxing babies to sleep well. I hate losing sleep. I do not function well on little sleep. But it looks like little sleep is in my immediate future, unless I figure out how to train the baby to go to sleep on his own and stay asleep. And so, sleep training it is.

I’m eager to see what we’ll look like after these six months are over. Our family dynamic is sure to be different. I hope that I learn to take greater responsibility for the kids and the house so the Ogre doesn’t feel so compelled to help me all the time, and can focus more fully on his work. I hope that this time of separation will be a good thing, in the end, in spite of how difficult it will be to endure. And I know that whether or not it’s a good thing is largely up to me.

After all, life is what we make of it.