Moving From Home
The last weeks of school are torture. When I pass my friends in the hall the best I can give them is a nod. I used to hang out at my locker talking with friends about projects or baseball. Now I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to be reminded of all that I’m leaving behind.
When I get home from school I go to my bedroom and close the door. I sit on my floor with the dust balls and dirty socks and stare out at nothing. I can’t tell you why but the numbness inside almost feels good – like going on vacation.
When I was a child our family moved and I changed schools so often I marked milestones in my life by which town I lived in and what school I was attending at the time. Even before my father died when I was ten years, old my family had already changed homes four times. Although my family all moved with me, changing schools so often and having to start over was a deeply challenging experience for me. Having to make new friends, and figure out the school yard scene time and time again was exhausting and often left me feeling isolated and alone. I recall when my mother moved us after my freshman year of high school I was so depressed and alone I would come home after school and sit on the floor in a little cubby off my bedroom and listen to records for hours. My mother would come home at dinner time, a single mother raising three kids, and find me sitting by myself unwilling to speak to her, or anyone else. She would try to talk me out of my slump and suggest solutions for my loneliness. But I was tired of starting over.
Flip, of course, is grieving not only the loss of his school friends, baseball team, and everything that is familiar to him, he is also grieving the loss of his family as he knows it. The abyss into which he falls is vast and deep. The numbness he experiences while sitting on the floor in his room is the only place he has to retreat from the pain and fear moving and divorce bring up for him.
Many children of adoption experience loss as a traumatic and triggering event. While it may not make sense to some that a child who comes home to their adoptive family at an ‘early’ age, six months, eight months, and sometimes even at birth, can experience grief and loss, they do. But because this is a pre-verbal experience, our children have no context for the fear that comes up for them when situations of loss throw them into a trauma response. They can’t make sense of the magnitude of those feelings, and when the people around them can’t make sense of it, they may feel even more lost and alone.
When Kaylee decides to sit beside Flip in his room without speaking, just to be close to him, she has given him the greatest gift she can. By remaining by his side quietly she has allowed him to be where he needs to be while letting him know that she is with him in whatever emotion it is he’s having. At times we as parents want to explain, fix, or inquire into our children’s pain and struggle. When a child is having a traumatic response however they may not be able to tolerate even the sound of our voices. Kaylee somehow senses this in the beginning and through this simple act of loving kindness eventually draws her brother out of his isolation.
Often as I wrote Sliding Into Home, the characters in the book told me where to take them, what to say, and how to respond to different situations. I imagine this is my own life experience bubbling up from a well deep within, but at times I felt these children and Zorba were alive within me, helping me tell their story. I was simply the tool they needed to get it out into the world. So I thank Kaylee for her wisdom and hope we can all learn from her example and hold safe and quiet space with our children, family and friends when they are experiencing deep feelings of loss, grief, or overwhelm.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. The author talks about the way in which Kaylee’s ability to sit quietly with Flip in his overwhelm and pain, rather than trying to fix it, is the greatest gift she could have given him. Have you ever had the experience of being in so much pain or turmoil that you can’t tolerate someone trying to talk with you about it? Have you ever experienced someone just sitting with you while you cried or talked about a difficult situation?
2. Can you talk about how it might feel, or did feel, to have someone listen or sit quietly, rather than trying to joke, or fix, or distract you from your pain?