Homecomings

I saw this idea for a post over at Shelli's, who got it from Carmi... go ahead, go check out both their posts before continuing...I'll wait for you...

So both of them wrote about coming home and being greeted by loved ones. I've had the same experience of course, most people do at some point in time. Especially if you have kids. Or dogs. But coming home for me is not about ME but about my daughter. You can't have a homecoming without a leaving...

I was separated from my husband when our daughter was only 5 months old. Since that time, my Chickadee has been tossed back and forth between us. When Chick was a mere 6 years old, I moved with my new husband all the way across the US from Washington to Massachusetts. Then we began the rituals of long distance visitation. Several times a year my Chick would leave our nest and be delivered to her fathers house for a visit. Summer vacation. Spring Break. Every other Christmas... three times a year my little Chick was torn from us and we had to somehow function as a family without her.

Her absences were agonizing for all of us. For me, missing my firstborn, my chickadee, my buddy, my friend - was a physical ache. For my husband, knowing his little girl (she calls him daddy - there is no 'step'parenting here...) wasn't always safe or cared for was horrific. For Buddy and Bear trying to figure out why their big sister would leave, why she wasn't there to play with, to read to them, to just BE there - was lonely and even scary. Concepts of divorce and visitation are hard to understand - though they were indirectly affected, it was a scary thing to them. The first few days of her absence were not too difficult. But by the end of the first week it was beginning to hurt. We all had to adjust. We would forget and set out her place setting at the table, or fill that extra cup of milk at mealtimes. The kids would look for her to help them with a game. We would say, "oh, we have to take the van today because we can't fit all three kids in the - oh, right, Chicks gone...we can take the truck." Her friends would still call for her. I personally hated doing anything fun: the zoo, movies, bowling... because I felt like a traitor to not have Chickie there with us. It was like a little death everytime.

But her homecoming! Oh her homecoming! That feeling of picking her up from her fathers house, of getting her seatbelted into the car and driving away from his house and knowing that finally all was complete again... that fullness of spirit to know your family is whole again. The feeling of hugging her bony little body close to me after so long, to touch and smooth her hair, to look into her eyes and to hear her voice. The way she smells... her own unique Chick-scent. The way Bear and Buddy can't wait to wake her up the first morning she is home, how they want to sleep in their sleeping bags on her bedroom floor, how they want to show her everything as if she were a stranger, "Chick! Come in my room! Look at my pillows! See my books?" Bear does this - needs to reaquaint big sis with all the minutia of her life, needs to have sissy's acknowledgement and approval. Me too. I love her homecoming. Fixing meals and setting out that 5th plate and cup. Making lunches and filling that 3rd bag. Doing laundry and folding her clothes.

We moved back here to Washington a year ago. Chick was almost 15 and so I thought her and her father could just work out their own visitation and for the most part it has worked out fine. She seems him infrequently of her own will. And it is just a night or two at a time. She'll leave on a Friday night or Saturday morning and we will get her home on Sunday evening. Still though, we feel so fractured without her. Though it is just a night or two now, though Bear and Buddy are old enough to understand her leaving and her absence, they still ask when she's coming home. They still bombard her with attention and affection upon her return. The dog paces and whines while she is gone. The cats sleep on her bed and miss her. I think, several times while she's gone, "oh wait till I tell Chick about..." Recently when she was gone she called home twice. Now that she has her own cell phone, she can reach out to us whenever she wants to... and she does want to.

Her homecomings are about filling holes, about the satisfaction of something being completed. Her homecomings are about safety and peace. It's about belonging.

What will I do when she goes away to college?