The Burning Cold - Part 2

Part 1 here

My Dearest Love,

As I write these words I feel a deep anxiety, a fear that the events of the past few days, perhaps months, have created a situation that jeopardizes the health and fabric of our family, and while I don’t think that all of the blame for this can be laid directly on my shoulders, I do believe that I share the lion’s portion of it. My actions (and inactions) over the period beginning with your death and culminating in the present time have been ragged, often non-functional, emotionally charged, and not always rational. Looking back, they appear to be those of a person who is shell-shocked and depressed. Not too strange I guess for what I have gone through.

Having said that, I still need to take responsibility for my part in the events leading up to, and including the past few days.

As I drove home after visiting with my parents, I did so in a calm and philosophical state, taken in by the empty, winding road (not the freeway), and the beautiful fall colors. I felt refreshed. Little did I know that would not last.

Upon entering the house, I found our daughter drawing in the kitchen while plugged into her iPod. I think that I expected her to show some enthusiasm at seeing her father, but it was as if I were a ghost, and an inconvenient one at that. She acknowledged my existence, but barely. My feelings were hurt. I took care of the dog, who actually did seem happy to see me, but then, she always did, and started to unpack.

There was a message from your sister saying that she would drop the boy off before dinner, which was fine, so I grabbed a beer and started going through the stack of mail that had come in while I was gone. About half way down was a letter from the high school with a progress report in it. The only grade showing was an “F” in chemistry. I stared at it for a while, trying to understand what I was seeing. I walked it over to the girl and slipped it in front of her on top of the drawing she was working on.

To say the following conversation went badly is an understatement. She kind of blew it off saying that she had missed a lab on one of the days she was excused from school, that the teacher had told her she did not miss anything, and that this just kind of popped up. She said that she would take care of it. I reminded her that she had said the same thing about a math homework grade that turned up as failing a couple of weeks before. She shrugged.

Now, I was irked. I went downstairs to the computer and logged into the school districts parent connect program. Her old math grade remained and F, plus she had a second math homework showing the same grade in addition to the new chemistry failure, three in total. I printed off the results and went back upstairs.

Once again, it felt like pulling teeth to get our daughter’s attention. She looked at the printout, pulled her earplugs out and said something to the effect that this was no big deal and that she would take care of it and that I should trust her. At some point she had raised her drawing pencil up between us and was using the point of it to site down into my eye. That’s when I lost my temper.

I slapped the pencil out of her hand and told her to treat me with respect. I told her this was a big deal, that she was starting to blow off her assignments and that she was grounded until the grades had been corrected or the work made up. Things kind of went downhill from there. We both postured and argued and behaved like juveniles. Only one of us had any justification for that.

Later, as I was stopping around in my foul mood, made fouler because I knew that I had made the situation worse that it had to be, I realized that there was no food in the house. Before going, I had talked to both aunts who would be taking turns with the kids and asked them what they would like me to lay-in in the form of supplies. They both said that I didn’t need to do anything in that regard, so I didn’t.

The result of course was an empty refrigerator and dinner time not too far off. I rummaged through the freezer and found some chicken chili from the week before. There was just enough for the three of us if I made something else. Hot dog buns that had been hanging out in the fridge for too long were turned into passable garlic breads and that was our quickie dinner.

Joe came through the door just before it was time to eat and of course, he was unhappy with the selection. He was also unhappy to return home to a scene that was obviously tense after being spoiled by his aunt and uncle for a couple of days. The discussion at the table quickly descended into hell. It was my fault that it did. I was not acting like a responsible adult and parent. I was reacting to things from some hurt space where I was so tired of trying to make dinners that the kids would like and eat. Whenever I would ask them to help with the meal planning they would both stare at me and say that they didn’t have any ideas or didn’t care, but when I then would pick a recipe or prepare a meal, I would get whining and complaining. I was sick of it. I blew up and wound up going to my room for some quiet time before I said any more things that I would be sorry for later.

Of course, our son immediately got on the phone and the IM lists and complained bitterly to his various counselors about the intolerable situation. Among those he talked to were the Troika planning to leave town on your birthday to fly to New York to celebrate that day with my brother in Manhattan.

Little did I know that this family drama would wash over me in a wave of accusations and recriminations the following day. More in Part 3.