Daoust

With spring on the doorstep, I've been relishing the recent opportunities to enjoy the outdoors again, specifically with my 3 year old daughter. Today I decided to take her to the Eliot River Elementary School Dream Park, which is essentially a really cool wooden playground, or jungle gym, outdoors in the school yard. It's got all kinds of swings, slides, bridges, monkeybars etc. My daughter is just getting to the age where she can really appreciate all that the park has to offer. She still has some troubles climbing up some of the steps, and getting up and down in a few places.

When we first started coming to the dream park, I basically had to follow my daughter everywhere. She needed help with everything. She required me to be nearby, to help lift her on to things, or to encourage her to go down the slides, or to meet her at the bottom with a smile and a cheer. My daughter rarely interacted with the other children at the park, content to discover and enjoy the various attractions with silent wonder.

Today I began to notice the change that I know has been coming for a while. My daughters requests that I be nearby to help her climb up the steps were minimal. She was pretty much able to climb most of the steps herself, and to maneuver the park with relative ease. I was still there, watching her closely, waiting for her voice to call out. I lwaited off on the side for her to call out "Daddy, come help", but it never came.

At one point my daughter befriended another young girl who was climbing the steps to the same slide. The ease and speed with which their friendship was initiated alarmed me. If only we could all make friends as easily, I thought. Once my daughter found a friend, I almost became the afterthought. I chased her around the park, partly because I wanted to keep an eye on her, and partly because I wanted to feel like I had a reason for being there. I wanted to help her, and be there for her if she needed me.

Eventually, my daughters "friend" found another friend. I heard the two girls talking, and they exchanged some information about having gone to the same daycare. Suddenly my daughter was the outsider. I anxiously watched her reaction, as the two new friends ran off together toward one of the wooden towers. What would my daughter do? Would she sulk, and hang her head and go in the other direction, as I might do in that situation? Would she attempt to vie for her 'friends' attention?

As a parent, I had two conflicting emotions in that moment. The first instinctive reaction was to intervene. I wanted to run to her and hug her and be there for her. I wanted to comfort her, because I felt she had been done wrong by being dismissed by the two girls. But of course, I didn't do anything. In the end I realized that it wouldn't be fair or right for me to jump in at that moment. I realized that if my daughter felt anything, if she felt hurt or if she felt dismissed, I want her to feel that. I want her to learn what that feeling feels like, and I want her to come up with her own conclusions, and decisions on how to deal with it. Perhaps it's cruel and pessimistic of me to say this, but the way I see it, life is going to deal my daughter a fair share of problem situations, and difficulties, and sadness, and as much as I can be an influence and help her and comfort her at times, in the end she is the one who must learn to deal with these life situations. So I didn't do anything. I stood there, and waited, and watched her.

Perhaps it was an informed decision, perhaps it was ignorance, but I was amazed to watch my daughter run after the two girls and attempt to chum along with both of them, as if there was no competition, no hierarchy, no difference between them. I applauded her resilience. I prayed that she would always be so courageous and independent in her later formative years. It will serve her well.

While the signs of spring are certainly evident these days, the winds still have whispers of winter left in them, and they left their marks on my daughters cheeks and my exposed hands. I decided we'd both had our fill of the park, and went and took my daughter by the hand and led her out of the park. I feel that we both left having aged a little, have grown a little and gained a little wisdom of how the world works.

The warmth has returned to my daughters cheeks, and my hands, but I still wring with the tremors of a cold, gutteral, soul wrenching sadness that I haven't been able to shake since I left the park, and that I feel I shall not be able to shake for a long, long time...

__________________
I have faith in a few things - divinity and grace
But even when I'm on my knees I know the devil preys