Going it alone.

To be perfectly honest with you, right now, at this moment, I wish I was going alone.  Before you sink to scandal and intrigue, its nothing like that.  There is no one on this planet I would rather go with than Madeleine.   She has been my support system and advocate for nearly twenty years, and this will be no different.  Going alone would have saved me from doing something very difficult.

Yesterday we put our kids on a plane, one of the toughest things I’ve ever done.  They are going to stay with our family in Arizona, whom we know love them and will care for them as their own.  We won’t have be concerned for their well-being.

 In Seattle

In Tucson - They made it - Big exhale

If I were going alone, Madeleine would be here with them and I wouldn’t have to see or feel the uncertainty on all our faces. All the parents out there will recognize the struggle between, knowing you must do something, not wanting to do it, trying to stay strong so you do it and putting on a brave face, so your kids do not see just how hard it is.   They have a way of squirming their way into your doubt if you let them.  Had she stayed they wouldn't have made me face a really big question. 

My youngest was having the hardest time, he is so sweet and such a cuddle bug.  The thought of not having him next to me is hard.  Leading up to leaving for the airport he was showing signs of stress and was getting upset really easily and clearly did not understand fully why this was happening.   I kind of took it for granted that my kids understood it was important, that this was something I had to do, and that I had to have Mommy with me for support.  It never occurred to me why.

It is going to be hard.   I’ve said that already…many times.  That is why I need Madeleine with me.  I don’t know if I can carry that weight on my own.   But why do I have to do it and why is it so important?  The standard answer…people do benefit from knowing and connecting with their past…But how (from the mind of a nine-year-old)?  What are the long-term tangible benefits? What is it that will be different for me after this?  It almost feels like I’ve been spouting the top-level reasons…I’m going to see where I come from…This only has meaning because someone told me that is where I come from.  I’m going to experience my culture…which suggests there is an actual connection between a physical person and their social/cultural self…as an Anthropologist I have argued thousands...maybe only hundreds of times that culture is learned and that the culture you practice is based on your enculturation and not your biology…In that case I am Italian American and have no link to Cambodia.

The beauty of the young is that they see through all that.  Intuitively, my kids knew they needed more than what I was giving them… The real reason I need to connect with, and face my past, the real reason I was willing to send my three most precious possessions (No I don’t think I own them) on a plane and to be separated from them for nearly three weeks… I want to be a better Daddy.  I want to be a better husband and friend.  I want to find what it is that I’ve been fighting and make peace with it.  It's all about my wife and kids.  I can do better, and I can be better… So, we go, and I will make important connections, I will shed a lot of tears, and I will experience things that I can’t even imagine.  

People are always afraid of telling the world they are leaving, so no one robs them, but everything I truly care about won’t be at home…except my cats.

                                                    Mr. Jones            &            Mrs. Potter

My next post will be from Cambodia…