PenPenWrites

When my children were young, my mother lived in another city. I always thought her visits were the joy of her life. She was widowed and I saw her visits–she planned them; they lasted three weeks each time–as a welcome break to her loneliness and to her routine of playing bridge and canasta with her friends.

I am rethinking that view. Yes, she planned long visits and yes they broke up her routine and brought the company of our young family. But how pleasant a break it was in terms of her routine is what is up for revision. I have written at length on this blog about how tired most of us feel–especially those of us with children living in other cities or even other countries–when we visit our children and their very young children. There's the physical exhaustion of being around all that energy that is compressed into small children and the energy it takes to care for them. And, the change in routine takes a toll.

But there is another factor. The loneliness. Yes, our children are companionable and absorb us into their lives while we are there. We are not excluded. But there is still a longing to go home. I am reminded of this by an email I got from a friend who has been recruited to care for grandchlidren who are  9 and 13. Her son just got divorced. This summer, custody was split by five weeks each. Her son had to work and didn't have the money for camps or babysitters. So she flew out to California to be chief cook and driver for two weeks. She took the kids to the community swimming pool every day, to doctor appointments, to Target to get their school clothes. By the time she made dinner each night, she was wiped out. But most of all, she was lonely–even though she lives alone and here she was in a house full of people and the bustle and spats of pre-teen and early-teen children. Her email to me said it all: "How I miss my little house and my daily regime." 

Why do we feel the longing for home? I ask myself that when I am at my children's homes. I want nothing more than to be helpful; I love my grandchildren and they are well-behaved. And yet, something there is that wants to be surrounded by your own things and the routine of your own life. It is a contradiction in reason. It makes me wonder how much my mother liked her visits here.