Are You Happy with Your Daycare?

I think it was her eyes that put me at ease. Big, round, and guileless, they reminded me of my daughter's best friend in third grade.

Before she tipped the dental chair back and lowered it to her working level, I caught a glimpse of a Christmas family photo on the desk: my dental hygienist, her husband, their preschool-age daughter, and their infant son. With the hope of having something to listen to besides the scrape of dental scaler against tooth enamel, I asked her if she was happy with her daycare.

Her body straightened as if spring-loaded, and she looked at me with surprising intensity.

"Yes," she said. "But I had doubts recently – which I will tell you about – but first I want to say that I'm very satisfied with my daycare."

I squiggled my head into the wedge of the headrest, folded my hands on my stomach, opened my mouth, and stared up at the bright glass lamp with its foil-wrapped handle.

"The same woman has taken care of my daughter all of her life – she's 2 ½ now – and I planned to continue with her after my son was born in August. It was the perfect situation – she had a daughter the same age as mine, and she was pregnant at the same time – gave birth in July. Then in October, just as I was getting ready to go back to work, the woman's mother called. At first I couldn't believe it. She called to tell me that my babysitter's husband had committed suicide."

The hygienist pulled mirror and scaler from my mouth. I looked into her round eyes, now luminous with sadness. "Oh no…." I said before the instruments returned to their work.

"Yes. Shocking. He was twenty-nine years old." She paused her scraping to reflect on the memory. "I didn't know what to think. I didn't know what to do." Her tools went back into my mouth. "I delayed going back to work – happy to – and I took care of her kids a few times so she could go to the social security office and that kind of thing."

The hygienist sat back again, too deep in thought to continue scouring my teeth. I didn't interrupt. When she returned to the present moment, she dug in with new enthusiasm.

"I don't know how she did it, but she held herself together. She had her kids to think of. I wondered how she would manage – would she lose her home – would she have to find a job? She didn't have any education beyond high school – what would she do?"

"Ung Ung," I said, blinking a message to express my empathy.

"Well, she decided to keep on providing daycare. At first I was a little worried, but she's been fine and it's been good for all of us to have continuity. My kids are the only ones she takes care of and I like that."

As she reached for a different tool, I had a chance to comment. "Did you find out why the husband killed himself?"

"No not really, but the woman's social worker suggested that it might have been postpartum depression."

I raised my eyebrows.

"I know – I had no idea postpartum depression could affect fathers. Of course right away I started to worry about my husband. He's fine, just fine, no problems."

The hygienist wiped my lips with a moist gauze pad and raised the chair to exit height. She put her hand on my shoulder with a gentle squeeze as if to thank me for listening. "All done here. Everything looks good. We'll keep watching that problem area on the upper right. See you in six months."

Do Nothing

     So many of us are caregivers, and many more of us are worriers.  We want to be able to fix the world:  men have no proprietary edge on that. When we can't fix what is broken, we take care of it in the best way we can. There is healing in being able to do something, anything, to make the situation better. In my case, caring for my sister means baking cookies and sending cards and eating breakfast with her when I visit. Those things won't heal the cancer, but they help heal the soul, both hers and mine. And that's about all we can ask for, since we aren't really in control of the universe.
    Caregiving itself is a heavy task, one I'm happy that I needn't do on a 24/7 basis. How do we refresh ourselves when the energy we have been giving to others depletes our own reservoirs?
    Martha Beck in the September issue of O, The Oprah Magazine, writes an article titled "Lying Low," the gentle art of surviving when things fall apart. "If nothing's working for you, if you feel as though you're pushing against the grain, the most productive thing you can do is nothing." Step four in her article is to "Rest like you mean it." I breathed a deep truly relaxed sigh after finishing her article.
    When there is nothing to be done, do nothing, and then bake cookies.

What Do You Do?

What do you do when there's nothing to be done?

When Guillain-Barre Syndrome struck my grandson Brody, I would have done anything to make it go away. But there was absolutely nothing I could do. His mothers stayed with him in the hospital to work the magic of their nurturing; his doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, physical therapists, and occupational therapists tended to his medical needs. I stood on the sidelines and watched him suffer. My heart froze and splintered into a billion tiny fragments. I tried to bargain with The Universe, but she ignored my plea to transfer the illness to my body. My life hung suspended as if a pause button had been pressed, to be released only by a sign of improvement in Brody's condition. I tried another bargain: what if I offered my life in exchange, would The Higher Power heal him then? A flood of emotion lifted my spirits at the moment that I realized that I loved sweet Brody so much, I would die for him. It wasn't plausible, but I was willing, and somehow that gave me hope.

Now, almost three weeks later, Brody is on the long, tiring road to recovery. There are many ways I can help him now, and that heals my heart. Life goes on and "normal" continues to redefine itself day by day. But in the background the same question lingers:

What do you do when nothing can be done?

Paths Past and Future

So. We are now at that age when we have decided it is our turn, time for us to do what we want. Finished playing the second to spouse, family, job. 
 
The first task is to determine if we still remember how to put ourselves first, how to allow our desires to come to the forefront. Stop forever compromising for the benefit of others. And that is no easy task.
 
Then, if we are going to do what we want, we have to figure out what that is. Really. Not what someone else wants, not what we think we should want, not what we have always done. Then come the questions. Where, and with whom?
 
Is it just me, or is anyone else tired of living someplace because that is where the spouse is happy? Am I the only one who finds herself a completely different person, with different interests, than she was at the time she married that person? And is mine the only spouse who never changed? When you contemplate the next chapter in your life, can you think of wonderful things to do, but really really don’t want to do them with that person? Do others simply hibernate rather than force a situation that seems to have only solutions that make (keep) at least one person unhappy? 
 
So, first, the question of where we live. What if I push my wants and then even I end up not liking it? Then we are both unhappy. What if I love it, but he is miserable?  It is such a huge responsibility to have to prove that it is the right move. 
 
Then, how do we find NEW things to do that we both like? Is it just selfishness that makes me NOT want to share, or is it the fear that he will drag down my joy? Is it so wrong for me to want a partner that lights up over the same things as I do? Of course, the spouse would like nothing better than for me to light up over the things he loves ... so are we both chafing at the same bit? Or do men just get used to having their way and never feel regret if we are tired of the ride?
 
Finally, if there is a way to prevent this growing apart over the years, it is a moot point now. Great to share with the children so they can stay in step with their partners, but not helpful for us. And is it even possible, or is it a gender and societal issue? Relationships always require some compromise, but I wonder if there are couples out there who have traversed the child-raising years and are still HONESTLY walking together on the same path.
 
More importantly, are you out there, like me, finding yourselves with very little intersection, but discovering a way to come back together? I would love to hear your solutions.

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