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Taking Monsters to Pittsburgh Or A Life Lesson From a Child Many
years ago, while we were dating, my wife Missy attended a business school.
She had a roommate named Donna, who was to become a very good and
long time friend. Missy
and I became close with Donna and her boyfriend at the time (now husband),
Dan. Donna
came from a small town in Pennsylvania called Cassville and Dan from
Orbisonia. Soon after
graduation Donna and Dan decided to get married and to raise a family.
Their first child was Jennifer.
She was a wonderful little girl who was full of life and who stuck to
us like glue whenever Missy and I would go to their home for a visit. Shortly
after Dan and Donna moved to a new home, we learned that Jennifer was being
troubled by “monsters” that took refuge in her bedroom and who were
preventing her from getting a good night’s sleep.
While we discussed this situation with Donna and Dan, it struck me to
ask Jennifer to show me where the monsters lived. (My college child
psychology course was paying off – see, I paid attention!)
As she took me to her room she cautiously opened the closet door and
peered under the bed pointing out the monsters’ lairs. Since
Missy and I were returning to Pittsburgh the next day, I suggested to
Jennifer that in the morning we gather up all of the monsters in her
room and place them in a big plastic garbage bag.
I told her I would seal the bag up and take the monsters to
Pittsburgh so they could never find their way back to her house again.
So, sure enough, the next day Jennifer once again showed me where the
monsters were and I caught them and placed them into the big plastic bag.
When we were finished collecting the monsters the bag was “full and
bulging” and I secured the bag with a twister seal. Jennifer then assisted me in placing the bag full o’
monsters into the trunk of our car. Missy
and I said our goodbyes and drove off. We were
told later that the “exorcism” had worked and Jennifer resumed peaceful
night sleeping. I reflect on
that experience as a heart-warming event where Missy and I were able to make
someone else’s life a little bit more comfortable.
I also realize by reminiscing that I am really getting old, because
Jennifer already has a five-year-old child of her own. But I
have also realized, as I was busy being a husband and a father, that over
the years I have acquired a few monsters of my own that have crept into my
life without notice (those darn monsters never die!!).
The kind of monsters that are waiting in the wings as your children
become of age, and begin going off to school and constructing their own
life. Missy and I are now faced
with the fact that our youngest daughter will be going off to college come
this fall, and our oldest daughter will be a junior at the same college. We have
also realized that since our lives have pretty much been devoted to our
children - watching them grow, caring for them, following them through piano
and choir recitals, school plays, and school and community softball seasons,
that we are soon going to have time that is not strategically planned and
scheduled. We will soon be
staring at each other wondering what to do.
The dreaded “Empty Nest Monster” will soon rear its ugly head!!! As
Missy, actually I, began to panic, we tried to brainstorm ways to prevent
the inevitable and came up with nothing that wasn’t a direct contradiction
to our life’s focus of the past twenty years - our kids.
And then we suddenly stopped and realized that the answer that would
allay our (my) fears was sitting right there before us.
We were the answer! We
had (and still have) our own solid relationship.
The very relationship that was and still is the foundation for
raising our family. The very
essence of who we were and are to each other. Once
that awareness sank in, Missy and I began contemplating the changes we will
need to make that would still center around our family but with a little
different twist, a little different approach.
We will have an opportunity to reacquaint ourselves with each other.
When we plan to do something we need only to consider two people’s
schedules and not four. But
whatever the plan may be, it can still, and always will be, focused on our
family. So in a way even though we are giving up certain habits and
rituals, we are also gaining certain options.
We are entering a new chapter, a new era in our life together. But,
even though these changes are logical and a natural progression of life,
shedding a twenty-year routine, even though crazy at times, is very scary to
me and provides me with sleepless nights.
(Hello?….monsters?…. are you in my closet and under my bed?) Lesson
learned: adults can learn from children.
I have learned that monsters can be defeated even if you have to
literally take them by the scruff of the neck, place them in a garbage bag
and send them off to another city. All I need to do as a mature adult is to simply take a sensible
approach and face those monsters head on.
But, then again, who ever said I was sensible? See you next time. Dave SPECIAL
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October
2002
