Every morning my son runs down to the hallway from his bedroom to this window at the top of the stairs and takes in the landscape of the day. He looks for sun or rain or on this particular morning – snow.
It’s not much. A simple routine by a two year old boy starting his day. But when I’m able to catch it, I’m so happy that I did.
Last week I caught it forever.
It’s not uncommon to hear about my wife’s day home with our son or the times that they have spent with friends at a coffee shop or a playground or a gym class and feel incredibly jealous for this time that she has enjoyed at home with our kids.
It’s an odd tug, to be honest. Part of me is so glad that we can do this for her and our children, and part of me is so proud of myself for cobbling together my teaching and writing and speaking and storytelling and DJ and tutoring careers together into some semblance of an income that has allowed us to continue to pay the bills and keep our heads above water while one of us is not working.
But there’s always a part of me that knows that even if my next book is a huge bestseller or my last book is made into a blockbuster film, or even if we win the lottery that we never play because lotteries are for suckers, I will never get this same chance to spend the kind of time with my children that my wife has had over these past five years.
That time is gone forever. Clara is in kindergarten. Charlie will be in preschool next year. Even if I become a stay-at-home dad someday – which may actually happen at some point in the future – it will be a quieter, emptier, far more organized house. There will be chances to volunteer in classrooms and walks to school, but those lazy mornings in bed or those afternoons in the sun are not in my future, no matter what happens.
That blending of happiness for my children and my wife and sadness for what I can never have and pride for what we have accomplished is easier on some days than others.
Some days it’s easy as pie. Some days it’s a stone on my heart.
But I really shouldn’t be jealous of my son for his time at home. He’s only two years-old, and yet, when I see photos like this, of my son playing in his big sister’s bed, while she and I are off at our respective schools, I can’t help but think that he needs to get a job.
He’s just having way too much fun.
I tease my wife’s parents for their inability to throw anything away. Their basement is filled with artifacts from decades long since gone.
And while it’s true that they are a little obsessive when it comes to saving things, I’m also envious of the results.
My children love to go to their grandparents’ house and play with the questionably safe toys from my wife’s childhood. I can’t imagine how it must feel for my wife to be able to watch her kids play with some of her favorite toys from her youth.
A baby blanket from her childhood recently made its way into our home, and even though it’s a simple, pink blanket, our kids love it. When my daughter isn’t snuggling with it, our son is using it to play peek-a-boo.
The idea that my children are playing with a blanket that my wife once slept under as a child in unfathomable to me.
The only thing I own from my pre-adult life is a stuffed dog resembling Snoopy that I was given on the day I was born. It’s wearing a shirt that I stole from one of my sister’s dolls.
It’s ancient, fragile, and can no longer be played with. It sits atop a dresser in our bedroom alongside a teddy bear that my wife was given as a baby.
The stuffed dog is all I’ve got. The combination of an unexpected divorce, sudden financial ruin, an evil stepfather, the foreclosure of the family home, and a general lack of sentimentality in my parents have left me without treasures from my childhood.
Instead, I watch my children play with my wife’s childhood treasures and try to imagine how that must feel for both her and them.
My wife says I have an excellent memory. I’ve never thought so, but it’s true that I can lock a story into my mind and manipulate it onstage without much difficulty.
That said, my visual memory is almost nonexistent. My wife also says that if she were placed in a lineup with five other brunettes, I would be hard pressed to pick her out of the group.
An exaggeration, of course, but not far from the truth.
She also says that I remember my childhood in a way that few others do. My sister is the same way, if not more so. I’ve often wondered why people seem to remember so little from their childhood while I seem to remember so much.
I recently came up with a theory.
I grew up in a world that was often entirely absent of adults. My siblings and I were left on our own for large swaths of time. At an early age, I would leave the house at an early hour and often not return until dinnertime. I would babysit my brothers and sisters into the wee hours of the morning. We were given responsibilities and freedoms as children that would result in endless strings of DCF calls today.
Our parents didn’t engage in long discussions with us, and we were often in the dark about many things. There was no mention of the birds and the bees. There was no talk about our future. There were entire school years when my report cards went unread. There was a great division between child and adult in our home, and rarely was this division breached. This led to many challenges, much turmoil, and a constant need for problem solving and improvisation on my part.
In short, the way that I was raised (or not raised) led to many unique experiences and trouble.
My wife, by contrast, spent vast amounts of time with her parents. They drove to the Berkshires every weekend. Visited family often. Spent time together at the beach near their Berkshire home. Established traditions and routines that remain to this day.
My wife had a childhood of consistency, nurturing, and adult supervision. It was the kind of childhood that I hope for my children.
Perhaps my wife remembers less about her childhood because it was so consistent. So measured. So safe. Each day and each year resembled the next in a way that mine never did.
This is not to say that she led a boring or uneventful childhood. It was simply more predictable and tradition-based. She remembers much of her childhood through a gauzy shade of warmth and happiness. She recalls fewer specifics but has much more affection for the way that she was raised.
If you don’t spend your childhood lost in the woods, exploring the basements of burned-out farm houses, swimming unsupervised in cow ponds and stranger’s swimming pools, riding your bike for miles and miles from home, trespassing on construction sites, fighting, and living in a perpetual state of trouble and endless struggle, you are probably less likely to have the kinds of singular experiences that are piled high in my mind.
Perhaps I remember my childhood better than others because every day of my childhood was a new adventure. This is not to say that these adventures were welcomed or advised or even fun.
But they were certainly memorable.
I’m not a sentimental person when it comes to physical objects. I rarely attach meaning to things, even when given to me for specific reasons and by specific people.
Truthfully, I rarely recall how or where I acquired a possession. While my four year-old daughter can often tell me the origin of each of her toys and much of her clothing, I can’t come close to doing so with almost everything I own. I often can’t recall if I purchased an item or it was given to me as a gift.
My wife could not be more dissimilar to me in this regard. She comes from a home where nothing was ever thrown away, which I would find mind-numbing, except that she can now watch our children play with toys that she adored as a child. My daughter loves playing with those toys, and presumably my son will, too.
I can’t begin to imagine what that must feel like.
To be able to give your daughter your favorite childhood stuffed animal when her tummy is upset, as she did recently, must be amazing.
I think there is a lot of benefits to avoiding attaching meaning to physical objects. The ability to dispose of items that have ceased to have value in your life is liberating. I’m convinced that my ability to eliminate clutter from my life makes me more efficient. I’m also rarely upset when one of my possession is damaged or destroyed.
But all of this may pale in comparison to a moment like this, when your daughter is cuddling with the same teddy bear that you cuddled with as a child.
As you may know, my sister and I write a blog called 107 Federal Street (named after the address of our childhood home) where we attempt to recover and discuss memories from our childhood.
The purpose is twofold:
1. My memory from childhood is good, but my sister has an unbelievable memory. She can tell you what she wore on the first day of school for every year of schooling. She remembers names and dates and events like they happened yesterday. As such, she is an invaluable resource if I ever decided to write a memoir about my childhood (which I will likely do someday). This blog is a means on mining that memory and recording it somewhere in the event that I need it someday.
In short, I’m using my sister for my own eventual benefit.
2. I like to think that we are creating a record that our children could read someday so that they can learn a little more about their parents’ life and upbringing. Our mother passed away six years ago, and with her passing went all the memories from her childhood. They are lost forever. While I have no intention of ever dying, pianos fall out of windows from time to time, so you never know when life is going to squish you. This record is for my children to enjoy someday.
Happily, readers have been enjoying it, too, responding often and favorably to me about what we write. Kelli and I are currently on a roll. We’ve posted ten times in the past two month, including posts on our long lost step-siblings, our childhood pets and their frequent, brutal deaths, our elementary school teachers, our childhood poverty and more. If you’re interested in reading about any of these things, you can find our blog at 107federalstreet.blogspot.com.