Halloween traditions

Tonight Lukas suited up as The Muffin Man and joined in the age old American tradition of dressing up and begging your neighbors for candy. He loved it. He wouldn’t put down the first treat that he got and instead wrestled with the masses of candy in his tiny hands. He would not relinquish these tasty treasures to the large orange bucket that we brought for his collection. He didn’t trust his sugar stingy parents to give him back the sweets and treats and would rather drop or crush them then risk losing them to the bucket. My face hurt from smiling as I watching him proudly clomp down the street in his large boots dragging his long shiny blue cape through the leaves. Or as I saw him fearlessly climb the steps of stranger’s houses and say “more trick or treat. Please more trick or treat.” It is a kind of privilege to accompany him on this first adventure and to watch him overcome with unabashed joy, excitement and a touch of giddy confusion. Things come full circle when you pass on a tradition. Having said that, as I brought him to bed tonight I lay beside him and wondered what this holiday is truly about. I understand that it has roots in the Mexican celebration which honors the dead. From what I understand the costumes have something to do with dressing up to disguise ourselves from the spirits and maybe the sweets have something to do with gifts that we pass on to honor the dead? Honestly, I don’t really know. I could Google it but would that really change my relationship to Halloween or what my experiences have been. And honestly you can’t tell me that the kids who came to our door tonight dressed as superheroes and fairies, wielding shopping bags filled with store bought confections have any understanding or interest in the roots of this holiday. So while I proudly carve my pumpkin each year and anticipate Lukas’ future treks through the neighborhood a part of me feels saddened by the hollowness of Halloween. It is a joy to pass on this tradition but how would it feel to pass on a tradition with a deep and meaningful story and message behind it? How can I bring richness to these traditions? How can I make them special for our family? What do I want them to mean?

bye bye Oma and Opa

“Wake up, Oma and Opa be there.” Lukas chirps from the back seat as I drive him to day care after the big goodbye.
“No Lukas, you won’t see Oma and Opa for a long time now.”
“Morrow morning wake up, Oma, Opa be there.”
“No Lukas, Oma and Opa are going home. They are flying in an airplane to Germany where they live. You won’t see them again for a long time.”
“After nap, wake up Oma, Opa there, maybe Oma, Opa there.”
“No Lukas. Not now. Later.”
“Later.” He says, resigning himself.
After I drop him off I come home. The soup is still warm from our lunch together. The dryer has been turned on. There are echoes of their presence. It wasn’t an easy visit but it was special. Yesterday Lukas fell into them. It took him a long time because he was sick all last week but yesterday he played and laughed and walked and sang and read stories and truly enjoyed them. He ran to Opa for safety. He reached for Oma’s hand. He asked them to read to him. I was glad for the happy farewell but sad that it hadn’t come sooner.
I cried when they left. I felt weighted all morning, all week really. Not because I won’t see them again. It wasn’t really about me. I cried for a multitude of reasons. I cried because I know that Lukas will ask for them for weeks to come and that I cannot explain why they went away or that he will not see them again until he is over 3 years old. By then they will once more be strangers who he has to warm up to during some short visit. I cried because I listened to Jorg’s mother, Annemarie speak with her other son on the phone this morning about their meeting when she returned. I could see how he is a part of her every day life and as I looked across the table to Jorg I could feel the weight of his decision to come to this country pressing on both his and my shoulders. All the miscommunications and misunderstandings….just feelings that wanted to bubble up from this complicated situation. I cried because as Jorg’s mother and father both hugged Lukas goodbye I could not imagine the situation reversed. I could not imagine it if my parents had only spent several visits with my son….with me. I cried for the relationship that Lukas will never have with them. Lukas won’t have the relationship that his cousins, Leoni, Niklas, Sabrina, Oliver, Mario all have. They all live near their Oma and Opa. They would come over after school to have lunch and do homework and play games. Although they are teenagers now they still drop by for a visit and a sweet. Lukas will not have that and it deeply saddens me and I can feel how it also deeply saddens Jorg but he cannot go there. If the situation were reversed I don’t know if I could go there. I don’t know what deep doors of emotion would close up in me. I’m probably just being dramatic. Goodbyes make me dramatic. But right now as I sit in this empty house, the birthday decorations that Annemarie brought with her from Germany still hanging on the dining room ceiling, right now this is how I feel.

parents

Jorg’s parents have been here for three weeks now. They have been helping so much, cooking and cleaning and playing with Lukas. But it hasn’t all been easy. Relationships are hard. It is interesting to stand outside and witness another person’s family dynamics. They are not my own and so I am not as invested. But they are dynamics which ensnare a man that I love, a man whom I have chosen to build a family with. Therefore they exhaust and entangle me in different ways. As I watch the father of my little boy play the boy himself I see myself in his mother. I see myself as the mother. I see what a role parents play in the lives of their children and I feel this deep weight of responsibility and the soft pain that comes with loving someone that you know you will have to let go of someday.
This is what hit me tonight as I lay in bed beside Lukas waiting for him to surrender to sleep. Watching him thrash and kick and finally curl into me, his forehead touching mine, his leg wrapped across my body. He has been sick the last few days. We both have. We were all up two nights ago as Lukas gasped for breath, his heart racing, his fever creeping up to 103 causing us to dash out at four in the morning to the emergency room. I was so sick today that I lay on the couch letting Lukas watch you-tube video’s of tractor and airplanes while I attempted to steal a few moments of rest. I cancelled all my classes. I accepted that I am not only too sick but that really, missing one day may be exactly what my body and ultimately my work needs. Instead I cuddled Lukas all day. He wouldn’t let me put him down and I like being needed. Even when all my body wants is to turn off everything around me except the sky….and the sound of the leaves blowing off the trees outside my window, I still like being needed by him. I imagine that is how my parents or Jorg’s parents might feel. They want to feel needed. It must be such a process to let your child grow. Lukas turns two in five days. Part of me feels tempted to say that it has flown by but really, I know better. The months have flown by but the moments, the days and nights and all their many colors and corners, they have trickled and ticked at times. But still, my boy will be two years old. I still have some time before I have to let him go. But tonight as I lay in bed, both he and I exhausted from sickness. I feel his head touch mine, his tiny body curled in and I cry as I sing his bedtime songs. I lose my voice to the tears as I think of Jorg’s mommy, of my mommy, of the road that all mommy’s must go as they let go of their baby’s and how the love never goes away. How tender and precious these moments are.