Good at Goodbye

Tonight, my ex picked the kids up for “his half” of Easter weekend. Hopped up on sugar and Egg Hunt adrenaline, with faces painted like bunny rabbits, they went this time without a fight and with minimal complaint. My daughter in her Hello Kitty nightgown, my son in shorts and a tee (they dress themselves now).

But as my three-year-old boy stood in the yard frantically waving and yelling “BYE!” with all of his 34 pounds of force, it occurred to me; My kids are getting good at goodbye.

Like it or not, the fact that my marriage couldn’t (and shouldn’t) survive, means that “goodbye” will be a regular part of their lives for the next 15 years. It means that from the time they were 15 months old, coming and going has been the norm.

And I’m not sure, in the big picture, quite what that means.

I know this. It means two bedrooms, and two Easters and two Christmases, of course. It means two sets of toys, two closets of clothes and two summer vacations. But it also means two lists of rules, two beds to adjust to and one parent to miss at any given time.

It means that two parents don’t kiss them goodnight each night. And two parents don’t wake them up on Easter morning. Two parents aren’t there at dinnertime and two parents don’t spend sunny Sundays in the park.

So what?

Will the goodbyes make them resilient and adaptable? Or detached and untethered? Does the half-and-half lifestyle mean they get half of the Mom and Dad they deserve? Or does it mean they get all of them, just half the time? Again, I’m not sure.

Are we “good enough” as two ones, and can we love them twice as much in half the time, so as to keep the reserves full for the regular absences?

I don’t know. But I know laying here tonight and picturing that waving three-foot-tall bunny-boy, I pray, and hope, and promise, and commit to make it so.