Six Maile Chix

I'm not sure where to start. It's quiet. I just finished having a "late night", as we call them around here, with Lose and Eli. Those two stinkers are hilarious. Of all things, they picked to watch Free Willy and eat chocolate ice cream shakes together while everyone else had to go to bed. Line and Malia have been able to go to two separate places lately and those two weren't invited to come along, which just about killed them. I told them I would try and make it up to them by allowing them to stay up late AFTER their big sisters had to go to bed. Oooohh...did they ever love that. They kept rubbing it in all evening, counting down the amount of time until their big sisters had to go to bed. I was excited myself. I never get to spend isolated time with them like that. Usually it's Line and Malia up with me after all the littles go down at night, and it was a treat to be able to cuddle up with Lose and Eli tonight. Lose's such a conundrum. She will do anything for a treat, but half the time once she'd earned it she doesn't actually want it. As I was making the shakes she begged for the cup with the "most" in it, but as Eli and I slurped away, she sipped once or twice and then took her cup upstairs and set it in the sink. What a funny girl. She has been struggling all over the place. After more breakdowns than I could keep track of once school was out, I decided that this girlie was going to nap. I knew she'd buck at the concept of a big 1st Grade graduate like herself having to nap with the little kids, but it has saved us. I can always tell when they need extra rest. If they can nap in the middle of the day and still go to sleep when it's time for bed, then naps it is. Plus, she is still asleep in the morning when it's time to get up. I talked to her therapist about it, and no surprise that it matches what she's working through in her sessions. For a long time she avoided her new reality. She's beginning to face it head on, and I can tell it's exhausting her. It was so much fun being able to focus my love and attention on those two girls. They are so deserving of it and I feel that in the business and efficiency involved with all this single parenting stuff that I don't give them all that they need. They are so sweet, sassy, sincere, and yearning for love that I'm trying to hard to give them. What cuties.

I discovered several months back that my ability to feel in control of my grieving emotions lessens severely every 28 days or so, if you get my drift. My hormone shift once a month stirs up everything that I thought was settled, and it makes me feel all amuck and as if I had never made any progress within myself and within my relationship with God. Having said that, I have been pleasantly surprised these past two months when there was no rocking of the boat. I survived both monthly hormonal shifts with what I assumed, must be my new found maturity and growth I'd acquired as a widow and a daughter of God trying to seek her Father and understand His will for her. Thhbbbt. (That's me sticking my tongue out and spitting on such a foolish notion.)

I. Am. A. Mess! this month. And it's been gradually building up within me for about two and a half weeks. I've felt myself slipping in my ability to counteract my negative thoughts with a positive one, and today I completely fell off the "Cliffs of Insanity". (Can anyone name the movie that comes from?) Seriously though, today was it. All of the thoughts that I've had ever since Naki died all came crashing on top of me like a ton of rocks...the ones of fear, sorrow, self-pitying, abandonement, you name it, I've thought it today. I tried to remind myself of all the amazing lessons I'd learned in the past 8 months, but none of them could lift me. I have one thought that is my least favorite. I'm ashamed to admit it outloud. It is completely illogical, and makes no sense whatsoever. But in my downest of moments I feel completely abandoned by Naki, whom I know would never abandon me. Why can't I feel him near? Why don't I sense him in anything at all? It is the worst feeling. On my good days I am able to remind myself that some people have lingering connections with their deceased, and some don't. I'm just one of those that don't. But on my worst days, I am unable to feel reminded of anything other than the fact that my husband is gone, and I want nothing else than to feel something of him. Anything. And yet I do not.

I had the saddest experience yesterday. The girls' elementary school qualifies somehow for a program that provides free breakfast and lunch to children 18 and under during a couple of weeks of the summer. Yesterday we were there for lunch and sat at the first available seats we could find...it was pretty busy. While trying to peel 17 oranges, open three milk cartons and three straws to match, two bags of chips, and keep Ane from falling off the lunch table all at the same time, I overheard Eli talking to a little girl whom, as far as I know, we'd never met before. She randomly said,

"Yeah, my dad died. He said he'd never leave us, but he did. He promised us, but he didn't keep his promise. My mom says that he didn't do it on purpose, but he left us. He's dead. He's Polynesian."

I felt so sad, listening to her say things that are obviously on her mind, since they're spilling out of her mouth to complete strangers. I felt equally sad, that even though logically she and I both know that he didn't "do it on purpose", we still blame him for something completely out of his control. I've learned that it's a completely commonplace and acceptably normal thought process, to have the need to work through those feelings of being tricked, having promises broken, and feeling left behind. But I havn't yet learned if it ever goes away. I thought it would lessen, but look at us! It's still here, dispite our very best efforts to move past them. My therapist told me that it's like trying to glue a broken heart together instead of letting it heal on it's own. There is no forcing it to a place before it's ready to be there.

I know for certain that one of the reasons for my decline was a meeting I had with a financial advisor two weeks ago. I discovered the amount of time that I had until I had to start working was shorter than I had originally thought. Ane won't be in school yet, and I am so frustrated and angered at the entire prospect of not staying at home with her that it makes me want to spit nails. Not only am I grieving the loss of my husband and my children's father, but to an extent I'm also grieving the loss of his wife and his children's mother. I am having the roles I've always dreamed of playing stolen from me, and I'm pissed as hell about it. It has sent me into a tailspin of trying to figure out what exactly I should be doing to support this sweet family. Trust me when I say I have been ALL over the map about it. I have tons more research to do before I make a final decision, but c'mon. Let's face it. There's a reason I never finished school. It's because I didn't know what to do then either! All I ever wanted to do was be a mom. Seriously. This sucks...sucks, sucks, sucks.

As I talked about it in therapy, my feelings were validated by my therapist. Of course I have good reason to be angry! Of course I have good reason to feel robbed of all I've ever wanted to do. However, I was given a much needed gentle reminder of how blessed I have been. Without all of the generous gifts of our friends, family, and complete strangers, I would never have been able to stay at home AT ALL. There are many women who have regretfully found themselves in my position as widow, and needed to start working almost immediately. I was reminded that I had been given an enormous gift, and it would do me well to remember it. It has helped me to have that perspective. I could not imagine having had to leave the girls with others when the pain was so new and raw just to go to work. I have indeed been blessed.

Another reason for my spiral downward came because of a simple concert. A concert that Naki would have LOVED to attend. There were several people that were going, and I of course was invited to go along, but couldn't bring myself to go. Everyone there, well, almost everyone there, was paired off in couples. Talk about a third wheel. I couldn't do it. I just couldn't go and be the one alone. It has been the most painful thing for me! Not because of this one concert, but because it's reminded me of all the things that I will not get to go to with him that we both always wanted to, and of all the times that I will be forced to make the decision to either go and be the third wheel, or not go and stay home alone. To me it's a lose lose situation, with no solution. I have talked to my therapist about this, too. (Seriously! What do people do without therapy?!) He told me that what I was experiencing was one of the reasons people in my situation remarry. Remarriage in a situation like mine has been something that I just have not been able to understand. How could anyone so in love, move on to someone else just because they're lonely? Well, not that I have ANY plans of remarriage, but having experienced a tip of the loneliness, I can understand others' need to remedy it. Personally, I'd rather be lonely than be with anyone other than Naki. But at least I can understand others a bit more through my experiences. I wonder if the loneliness completely goes away. Sure, you're not alone, but wouldn't you still feel a bit alone without someone you loved so much? Hmm...I wonder.

The pool we swim in every year has finally opened! All of us around here are very excited about that, since it's the focal point of our entire summer. Without it we'd wither in the heat and not know what to do with ourselves. I have been both excited about it opening and dreading it. Naki is the fish of this family. He has taught the first four girls how to swim and was starting to teach Eva at the end of last summer. He also human rockets the girls off his shoulders, let's them stand on his upraised arms like little cheerleaders and then drops them in the water, plays racing games in the pool imitating the sound of the olympic starting beeping sound, and much much more. Me? I sit on the side, dangle my toes in the water, sunbathe while watching the baby playing on the side of the pool, pass out snacks when necessary, and take kiddos potty when needed. It would be completely appropriate to say that I am angry with the change in the pool arrangements caused by Naki's death. I do not WANT to teach the other kids to swim, but must continue his efforts. I do not WANT to play in the pool. It is not refreshing to me. Even on the hot days, I feel cold and don't like how my hair dries when I get out. I'm aware that it makes me look strange to admit this outloud, but I don't care. I like to dive in now and then to cool off, but then like to climb out and sunbathe. On the rare occasion that I would stay in the water, it was only to cuddle and hang on to Naki for a while. I'm shameless...I'll take any opportunity that I can. Of course, it would only last very briefly since he's not a man for public displays of affection. But other than those times I was happy to be on the dry part of the swimming pool. Needless to say, things have changed. It's time to start coaching myself mentally in this area of my new life as well as all the other areas, to convince myself that I can do it, and that I might even enjoy it and learn something new about myself... Blah blah blah...

This past Wednesday evening we were finished swimming and I was working on collecting all our goggles, diving rings, and diving sticks when I noticed one on the bottom right in the middle of the deep end. Naki used to get those for me. I asked Line, who was still in the water, to go and grab it for me. What started out as a simple question turned into the shrieking moment of Amiron Pool history. Line will hate that I write this for others to read, but I only write it because I wanted to share what I learned from it. She was convinced that 1. it was too deep for her, which I knew that it was not since she touches the same depth, but on the side of the pool, every time we swim, 2. I was sending her to her death since she had learned last summer that they'd installed a safety on the pump located under a vent cover in the deep end, which would shut off if anyone's hair was sucked through and was being held onto the vent cover by the pressure of the pump, 3. That she would rather NEVER swim again if I didn't make her go down there. She asked me multiple times to hold her, hug her, but no matter what she would not stop shrieking, crying uncontrollably, and in general freaking out. I tried to remind her that such behavior was just not conducive to holding your breath, and that if she wanted to go home anytime soon she needed to cut it out. Now, I am Line's mother. I've been her mother for a while now, and know her pretty well. She's been somewhat dramatic since the day she was born, somewhat being the exaggeration of the century, and I've learned how to handle her in these situations. I knew that she HAD to do it now, just to teach herself what she was actually capable of. The more she fed herself the thoughts that she was incapable, the more she believed it. I was trying to talk to her and tell her that the more she told herself she COULD do it, the more she would believe that, instead. Wouldn't you know it, while I wasn't paying attention some little boy took the skimmer and skimmed it right off the bottom, walked over to me, and handed it to me. Good grief...that was not what I wanted. So I thanked him, and tossed it right back in the water. I KNEW she could do it, and we weren't going anywhere until she knew it. As I knew she would, eventually she calmed herself down and went right down to the bottom like the little fish's daughter that she is, and came back triumphant on the first dive. Later that night she came and apologized to me. She even admitted to me that all the shrieking and wailing had been for attention...the little bugger. It made me look like the meanest parent alive, but since when did I care what other people thought of me? I was confident in what I knew needed to happen, and that's all that mattered. The whole situation was, however, another ingredient in my downward spiral. In the past, even if Naki hadn't been there, I'd have been able to commiserate with him and he'd have been able to tell Line how ridiculous she'd been acting. Even she told me that Dad would have laughed at her outrageous behavior. But not being able to confirm with her Dad that I had in fact done the right thing made me question what I'd never questioned before. I hate being the only bad guy, the only good guy, the only discipliner, the only rewarder, the only live parent. It feels so burdensome, and you never have anyone there to back you up, to correct you, to comfort you, or to reassure you. All of the feelings I'd felt about the swimming pool in addition to my feelings about my parenting weighed me down.

As I drove home from the temple this morning crying, and really crying more today than I have in some time, I reflected quite a bit on Line's triumph over her swimming pool deep end woes. I realized that I truly believed what I had told her. She desperately, in that moment, needed to feed her soul thoughts of encouragement, confidence, optimism, and faith in order to triumph over her thoughts of self doubt, anxiety, and insecurity. I would do well, in my moments of despondency, to remember what she told me. Later in the evening I asked her what had been able to calm her down and she responded, "Mom, I said a prayer". Simple as that. Thanks for teaching me, girlies.