Stepping Away

Even though it’s the weekend and the sun just scaled the horizon, my entire household is up. I pour myself a second cup of coffee and saunter into the play area, which under normal circumstances is my office and writing space. My daughter and grandsons, ages four and two, have been visiting with their fourteen-year-old dachshund for over a week. The group hovers over the train table where the boys vacillate between erecting and deconstructing the wooden train track.

I thread a smile into my voice. “Good morning, everyone,” I say.

My daughter looks up. Her eyes have that glazed, never-get-enough-sleep look, one that I remember wearing as a young mom, too.  

“Hi, Mom,” my daughter mumbles. “Hope we didn’t wake you?”

“I’m used to getting up early,” I say. 

I plop down into the desk chair, reminding myself how glorious it is to hear voices in the house again. The ancient dog scampers over to me, and I pick her up. She settles into the nest that my gray bathrobe makes in my lap. 

One of the boys wants the Brio train engine that his brother holds in a fierce grip. During their battle of wills, the train set becomes air born and splatters across the hardwood floor. My daughter is on her feet, scolding, and putting the boys in a time out. As my youngest grandson howls with hurt and frustration, the dog sighs in my lap. I stifle a giggle. It’s uncanny how animals often mirror the moods of the people closest to them.

I let my slippers find the floor and announce that I’m going to take the dog out. My daughter rolls her eyes and then winks at me.

As I shadow the aging dachshund around the yard in my slippers and bathrobe, I breathe in the fresh morning air, treasuring the stillness. Perhaps it is the gray robe. Or maybe it is the act of slipping away while my adult child deals with her parenting challenge. Either way, a memory is triggered. 

During the time when my husband and I were raising our four children, my mother-in-law was a frequent houseguest. Whenever the chaos of our family life hit a high note, my mother-in-law tucked her cigarette case and lighter into the pocket of her gray robe and slipped off to the front porch, a collie dog in her wake. At the time, I watched her with ultimate envy. The easy, well-timed exit and the moment of solitude she enjoyed outdoors with my pet. 

I suspect that a few moments ago my own daughter wished that she could have escaped with the dog and me, too. And it occurs to me as the dachshund and I re-enter my home, that I am the exact same age that my mother-in-law was when this specific memory was made. 

I shake my head in wonder at the parallels that life offers. While I do not wish an early widowhood on my daughter–something else my mother-in-law and I have in common–I take comfort in the kind of mothering I observe in my daughter. I know she realizes that in due course she will catch up on badly needed rest, but I want to caution her: Don’t hurry through these long and tiring days. Because as my mother-in-law and I are both aware, an increase in personal time comes at the expense of adding to a strong box of memories.

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