Moving Day
I didn’t expect to see the moving van this morning. I’ve known about the move for months, and I knew that today was the day, but even so, seeing the movers busily carrying items out of the house as we walked by on our way to school came as a shock. Suddenly, the reality that there would be no more Thursday playgroup meetings, no more keeping each other company during seemingly endless assemblies and school performances, no more playground playdates, it hit home. Susan is moving. Today.
They say that it takes a village to raise a child, but in this age of far flung relatives, overpacked schedules, and stranger danger, it often feels more like being stranded on a desert island. I’m very lucky in that I do have a village–a wonderful network of family and friends who provide both emotional and practical support. And for the past three years, Susan has been a very important part of my village. She’s one of the best moms I know. And not in the way that makes you feel like a bad mum in comparison. She’s an incredibly grounded woman, and it gives her a patience and empathy as a mother that I often envy. It allows her to communicate her high standards and expectations to her children in ways that make sense to them. However, she also yells at her kids sometimes, and occasionally contemplates her escape plan when the pressures of raising three small children just seem to be too much to bear. Knowing that even the best mums feel like that sometimes did a lot to make me feel better about my own failures as a supermom. In fact, knowing that even the best mums drop the ball sometimes inspires me to stop beating myself up over all those times I’ve failed to measure up, and just get on with the business of doing better.
We met on the first day of Senior Kindergarten. Sabrina was new to the school and after she was ushered inside by the woman I would come to know as the Kindergarten Mussilini, I was left standing alone in a corner of the playground as all the other mommies caught up after the summer apart. Susan came over and introduced herself. I didn’t know then how much I would like Susan or what an important part of my life she would become; I just knew that I was grateful to her for reaching out to me. Over the years she’s been a shoulder to cry on and a friend to laugh with as we work our way through this parenting journey as well as an invaluable support.
Susan is one of those rare people who possess a true generosity of spirit. When Regan was born, she organized a food shower and delivered over a week’s worth of homemade frozen dinners to my home. More than once when there was an unwieldly project to deliver or I was too sick to walk her, she’s picked Sabrina up and driven her to school, even though she lives across the street from it and I live out of area. And she genuinely listens to people when they talk to her. You never get the sense that she’s not truly present in the conversation; you do get the sense that she is honestly interested in you and in what you have to say. I am a better person for having had the gift of her friendship.
We’ve built a strong friendship based on mutual respect and understanding in spite of the fact that we are in some ways very different people. .Susan’s a fairly traditional woman while I’m…not. And she has a calm and soothing presence whereas I tend to be more voluable. It’s helped that for all their differences–she’s a stay-at home mom who’s been married for going on 15 years whereas I, in addition to parenting solo, have been out of the home for either school or work for Sabrina’s entire life–when you scratch the surface our lives have some fundamental similarities: Our older children are the same age and have been “best enemies” since kindergarten–on any given day they are either joined at the hip, or at each other’s throats. We had our last babies the same year–two little girls who would have gone to kindergarten together in a few years.
I knew I was going to miss her, but until I saw that truck this morning I didn’t realize how much I was going to miss her. I feel like my village just got smaller.