Friday, July 21, 2017

Two lessons in bad timing...

I am not a fan of transitions.

I shouldn’t complain about my 2 weeks vacation but the planning, the paperwork on both ends and the onslaught of “goodbyes” take a toll on me emotionally.  Yesterday I wrapped up everything at my family practice.  Today, I had the hard job of saying goodbye to my 4 patients at hospice.   When you leave your palliative end of life patients for 2 weeks the goodbye has a special poignancy to it.  I managed the first 3 tears free but broke down with the last one.  I wished, in that moment with them, that I wasn’t leaving for 2 weeks.  The brother graciously offered up the fact that “You wouldn’t be able to do what you do if you didn’t take a break now and then”.  I nodded in agreement, but the unspoken hung heavily in the air.  For this man, and this family, my vacation came at the wrong time.  After months of developing a deeply meaningful and trusting relationship, I was leaving at a crucial time.  As I’ve explained to my quizzical husband on many occasions, “It’s like teaching grade 8 all year but not showing up for Grade 8 Graduation.”

And so I left hospice today with a heavy heart and did what always makes me feel better - - I went to find my family.

I had heard the plan at breakfast that morning – they were off to the lake to paint the tree house that they were building together this summer.  What better way to kick of a 2-week vacation than a good bike ride out to the lake to surprise them? 

Keen as they had been this morning it was evident that the day was not going as planned.  The tree house was full of half painted fence rails with open paint tins and brushes scattered across the floor.   Rob was down by the water working on a zipline and the kids were up at the house alone.   Apparently none of them were ACTUALLY all that keen on painting after all. Without officially announcing my arrival, I peeled off my sweaty bike gear and set to work.   Painting the rungs of the tree house, up in a tree and all by myself was meditative and quiet and just what I needed.  Off in the distance I could hear the familiar tussles of sibling disagreements with the occasional harsh word and yell from Toby from up at the house, but I kept painting, knowing that soon enough I would be a welcomed part of whatever disagreement they were having.

After a brief time the shouts and noises grew closer and soon my hideaway was discovered,

“Hi, Mom” they said, excited to see me, “Whatcha doing…??”

I handed them each a paintbrush and told them to join me.  We could paint together.
It was a combination of a Tom Sawyer and a Von Trapp moment.  Neither of them dared refuse as they were relishing the opportunity to hang out with me but I don’t think either of them REALLY wanted to be painting.  So I tried to engage them in conversation.

“So…. what were you guys doing up at the house?” I asked innocently, pretending I hadn’t heard the screaming and yelling

“Oh,” said Toby earnestly, “We were busy building a FORT together!”

“Ah…” I said, “I see.”

 “Why?” he asked, “What did you THINK we were doing?”

“Oh, nothing” I said, painting away, “I just thought I heard some fighting that’s all”

“Oh…right…” Toby said.  “Well….there WAS this ONE moment…when we were building the fort and I couldn’t get one of the pillows to stand up straight and I kept trying and trying and it kept falling over and I was VERY FRUSTRATED and Mia just BURST OUT LAUGHING at me and that made me REALLY ANGRY”

I was about to sympathize with him when a paint covered Mia piped up from the other side of the tree house,

“Oh, Toby…” she said, “I wasn’t LAUGHING at you I was just LAUGHING at something FUNNY that came into my head a that moment.”

RIIIIIIIIIIGHT.

I didn't buy it for a second.  But our Toby is equal parts trusting and naïve,

“Really?” he asked Mia with complete honesty, “What was is that was so funny?’

BUSTED.

Mia didn’t skip a beat.  She dipped her paint brush in and turned her back to us to paint a rung of the railing and launched into a slow but confident tale,

“Well….you see….FIRST I was thinking about going down a WATERSLIDE….” She hesitated for a bit as she painted, “And THEN I got to thinking that maybe at the END of the water slide I would do a fancy DIVE off of it….but I didn’t.  Instead I imagined that I had done a GIANT BELLY FLOP.  And that made m LAUGH out LOUD.”

“Oh,” Said Toby a bit surprised, “Yes that DOES sound funny.”

“Yes,” Mia replied smugly, “You see Toby it was just REALLY bad timing."

Ahhh…the dichotomous bookends of my life…If today had been a Sesame Street Episode it would have been brought to you by the phrase “BAD TIMING”.

And just like that….I was on summer vacation.
The Unpainted treehouse

Always worth the uphill bike...




                                               And finally...a video of Rob's finished Zipline!!!

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