We Are The Chris Doyles

In the last three weeks Chris and I have been in the same house for five days.  We'll both be home for the next 4 days, and then I'm gone again.  It stinks.  It's  not that either of us cannot handle being the sole parent at home.  The children are still being fed; they're still getting to their activities; they're still being supported in their activities; they're still getting their homework done.  They're not being forgotten--okay, last Thursday I forgot Caroline didn't have a ride home, but I quickly reduced the number of hours she will need in therapy with a desperate pleading text to Mama C. So I would say we are operating at a 98% effective rate.  But it's still not easy--re-entry for all of us is hard; the daily operations continue but....

As I was running this morning I was reminded of a phone call I had with one of my most honest and loving friends, Gillian.  Chris had been out of grad school for two years and we were living in Pittsburgh.  We were still trying to rebuild our finances and Chris was offered the opportunity to go into consulting.  (The children were 3, 4, 5, and 7) We were seriously considering it.  The bump in salary would decrease our debt quickly and thereby increase our budget.  It was very tempting.  We rationalized that we could do it for a few years while they were little and didn't have as many activities.  (By the way, that was the only realistic part of the rationalization, they didn't have as many activities.)  I was on on the phone with Gillian and telling her about this opportunity.  "Have you really thought this through?" asked Gillian in a tone that said, "I'm sure you haven't thought this through AT ALL! And you have lost your ever loving mind"  "Yes" I responded, "It will help so much, and it's not like I haven't been at home with the children during the week by myself before.. Remember the summer between his first and second year of graduate school?  He only came home on the weekends.  I was able to get everything done."  Loooooong silence.  Me, "Gillian, don't you remember?" Taking a deep breath Gillian said, "Oh yes I remember, we ALL remember.  Yes you got stuff done" she said in her most compassionate but remembering she was probably talking to a still somewhat unstable and exhausted person, "but it was HELL!  PLEEEEEASE don't do this again." Only for a moment, but for a very important moment she lost her I'll be supportive of you no matter what persona and entered her own survival mode.   (I should probably be thankful that I was so exhausted during those years that I was experiencing and am probably still suffering from a form of survival amnesia.)  I do, however, remember well one particular episode.

It was a Saturday evening; we had finished dinner, and Chris said, "I'll handle the baths and then come down and help you clean up the kitchen.  Why don't you just sit down for a bit?"  Well you didn't have to ask me twice; I jumped up from the table and moved into the living room as Chris headed up the stairs with a 10 month old, 2 year old, 3 year old, and 5 year old.  I settled into a well worn arm chair, placed a glass of wine on the sill next to me and got ready for some mindless TV.  I was flipping through the channels barely listening to the squeals and laughter wafting down from above enjoying a brief moment of not being touched or talked to when I heard one blood curdling scream.  Before I could get out of the chair a symphony of screams began to bounce off the walls as they made their way down the stairs at lightening speed.  I raced up the stairs already forming a plan in my mind of which of us would take the obviously seriously injured child to the hospital and which would stay home and clean up the mess and calm the others.  I entered the bathroom and came to a sudden stop.  I saw and heard Sarah Katherine screaming and trying to claw her way back into the tub.  William was sitting on the floor with his hands over his ears screaming, "No, no, no" like a broken record.  Christopher was standing in the tub saying, "Please don't; it's not right."  And Caroline--well I can't remember what she was doing--more therapy hours for her.  Chris was standing in the chaos repeating more and more loudly and more and more sternly, "I am the father and you'll get out when I tell you to."  I froze--there was no blood but there were a lot of red desperate and angry faces.  "Mommy, he's not doing it right.  He's not following the rules.  Make him stop." Sarah Katherine barely got out as she hiccuped her way through her tears.  Chris looked at me with a deer in the headlights look--or perhaps it was the look of someone who has entered an asylum and just wants out.  "I have no idea what they're talking about."  Now I have to say that one of the things Chris and I have worked hard at then and now is presenting a united front, but there was that glass of wine and mindless TV downstairs still calling my name although it was muffled due to the cacophony of wails.  "Just let me do this," I said. I just wanted it done and them in bed.   I'm not sure, but I think Chris might have heard those words as words of grace; he definitely heard them as permission to leave with no threat of me crying later and inaccurately saying "I have to do everything."  (not that he'd ever heard me whine or cry about that before) because he flew out of the bathroom and down the stairs saying over his shoulder, "I'll come back for bedtime stories if you want me to."  (I suspect he was secretly hoping I wouldn't.  We love our children, but we also know when we need to step away from the chaos.)

So what had happened?  I had a system, an order.  There was a way of getting the children out of the bath that happened each and every night, they counted on it, and Chris didn't know our system.  Honestly he's always been more flexible than me (I know that is shocking), and he truly didn't understand the big deal.  We had a way of doing things, a way of being a family, a way of operating and he didn't know it.  Later that night I said, "Honey I appreciate you helping tonight, but I just need you to do it my way.  I need our lives to stay the same--orderly and in control or when you leave tomorrow night it is hell for me."  Those words were painful for him to hear and they were painful for me to say.  I didn't recognize it then as well as I do now.

Both Gillian and I were right that night on the phone.  I did manage the day to day routines of the family, but there was a cost.  The five of us became a group and that summer Chris was on the outside.  We loved him coming home, but honestly it was hard.  It changed the dynamics; we forgot to fill him in on how we did things.  He was home, we were a complete family, but he was always a little bit on the outside--a part of us but.... I know there are families that handle this much better than we did, but I suspect there are still always the bumps that come with the re-entry and there might always be the person who always feels a little bit on the outside.  I know for our family we want to feel whole and being together makes us whole--we are The Chris Doyles,  and we need all six of us to be that in all its fullness

As I ran this morning and thought about this I had an "aha" moment.  I often hear the question, "Why does it matter if I go to church every week?  Someone else can do the _____________."  The answer is yes, someone else can do whatever it is that keeps the operations going, but no one else can be you.  No one else can bring to the community what you can as your own person.  So my answer is going to be, You're right--someone else can do your task.  But, we don't need you to do for us; we need you to be with us because without you were are not a complete "us" in all the fullness of  being God's family.