Last week was not a good week. And for a very weird reason. Here's your gateway to my innermost thoughts of the previous week.
I came back to my desk mid-afternoon on Monday and saw a gaggle of women standing around, yapping like a bunch of washerwomen--and I say that with all due deference, mind you. Anyway, as I walk past the group I hear someone say:
"Does he know? Did anyone tell him?"
The group of women were surrounding my friend Ceci, who stood beaming. I was asked what news could Ceci have which would be the biggest possible news I could think of.
"You're getting divorced?" I said, half sarcastically, as I think I knew the answer.
I made eye contact with Ceci, who truly is one of the nicest people currently walking Earth.....and gave her a hug and congratulations on her pregnancy. I knew that she and her husband Jorge were both elated at the news and I was happy that she was happy.
And then...I dunno. Something happened. I was sitting there, listening to the women in our office ask for every detail, every minute moment, every iota of what happened when the news was delivered to this person and that person.....and all of a sudden I just couldn't listen anymore. It just became so much noise. I walked out of the office and towards the empty courtroom that I usually work in. I stood there for a moment......
and I screamed.
And I wasn't sure why. I wasn't upset at Ceci. She had wanted to get pregnant for a long time....her wish had finally come true. So why was I unhappy. I ended up leaving work early, still not sure why I was feeling what I was feeling.
Thank God I have a wife that I can talk too. We're very open with each other. I was worried at first that I couldn't talk to her about this one...unsure if she would understand, or help me understand, the source of my unhappiness. I tread very carefully....cautiously seeing if this was a subject I could broach with her.
"I don't understand why I'm so unhappy about this," I told her.
"Well," she replied, "have you considered that maybe what this is about is that she's going to experience something you never have. She & Jorge are going to be able to experience the birth of their child. You've never had that experience before."
"Hey, I don't want you to think that I don't regard Andy & Kellie as my own. I do."
"I understand that. But the truth is that they're not your biological children.....its something that you didn't experience."
We sort of had a moment of silence and then she spoke again.
"You're not rethinking the whole 'having a baby together' thing are you?"
Now when Kim and I first began to get serious, we each decided that our days of having children were past......that a child was not something that was going to be part of our future. I say that, and yet I believe that Kim is an absolutely awesome mother.
I remember when I was younger....and I was with my first wife. I wanted a large family.
Five kids....maybe more. Then I met my 2nd wife, and after a year or so together, I felt that I did not want to have children with her--that emotionally it was something that she would not be able to deal with---that she had other concerns that needed to be dealt with. By the time I met Kim, kids were not something that I still considered an option.
Andy & Kellie are great kids....I'm very lucky.
And yet somehow, my friend's happy news dug up something inside me....way deep down there. Something that I thought was way past gone. I talked to Kim and my sister (blessed mother counselor) and I finally understood my initial reaction.
And I felt beyond embarrassed by it. I felt ashamed of how I had reacted. The rest of the week came and went and I went out of my way to avoid talking to Ceci. I tried to be polite, but I suppose it came off as being distant or aloof. I got to the point where I was worried about how I would broach my next conversation with Ceci. My sister, quite correctly, told me not to tell Ceci what I had been thinking, because it wouldn't be fair for her to feel guilt at my unhappiness---afterall, she didn't do anything wrong.
It just so happened I was in court with the one person in my office who could understand (maybe) what I had been thinking. I told my friend Cathy (aka Momo) what I had been going through. She told me that she could tell that something had been troubling me. She & her husband Scott don't have children. I told her what had been going on inside the vast wilderness known as my mind and she made an interesting revelation to me. She told me that the day that Ceci made her announcement, she went home and later that evening she was ironing some clothes.
And then she suddenly began crying.
And she didn't understand why either. Maybe, I told her, we both looked at it as sort of an "end of the road" for our own prospects for children of our own. Ceci is the youngest person in our group of friends and work, and within the circle of friends that Kim and I have she's also probably the youngest person also. Maybe I realized that this was the last person I really am close with that is going to be experiencing the birth of their own child....and maybe it made me feel just a little bit older.
And then yesterday, a week since the news came out, and right after my conversation with Cathy......Ceci came over to my desk. And she told me that she couldn't help noticing that I hadn't been talking to her. I was a little flabbergasted.....I figured that she hadn't even noticed. I asked her to do me a favor and speak to Cathy---not because I was a coward, but because, true to my sister's advice, I didn't want her to feel some sort of guilt over the way I had been feeling.
This morning I walked out into the hallway at work and saw Ceci coming towards me.
She told me that she had talked to Cathy....I felt myself shuffling my feet....almost as an awkward high school kid would.
"What I am about to say," she began, "I want you to know that I say very selectively.
I really love you very much."
We hugged and I told her that I loved her very much too. Later I called Cathy to find out what their conversation had been about. She told me that Ceci had been very concerned about my silence to her and that she had cried when discussing it. After she had explained everything to her Ceci understood and wanted to say she was sorry.
Cathy told her that she was absolutley NOT to do that. She had no reason to be.
And she didn't. The problem had been mine....not hers.
I'm really very lucky. I have a terrific wife and two great kids.....most of the time they call me "Jeff". But when my daughter introduces me to her friends, she says:
"This is my Dad."
And that sounds pretty good.
Later,
Jeff
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