From ashes...gladness

Ashes Of Life
by Edna St. Vincent-Millay

Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike;
Eat I must, and sleep I will,—and would that night were here!
But ah!—to lie awake and hear the slow hours strike!
Would that it were day again!—with twilight near!

Love has gone and left me and I don't know what to do;
This or that or what you will is all the same to me;
But all the things that I begin I leave before I'm through,—
There's little use in anything as far as I can see.

Love has gone and left me,—and the neighbors knock and borrow,
And life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse,—
And to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow
There's this little street and this little house.


I have been a single parent for almost 10 years now. Considering that my son is 13 years old, he practically knows of no other life than the one he is leading now, that is, of being brought up by a tribe of people that includes me, his yaya Belsie, our driver Leo, my mom and dad (whom he calls Babsha and Dziadek), my brothers and their families and a host of househelpers who have all taken him under their collective wing. Of his father, he has very little contact, if at all, through no fault of mine.

By and large, he seems to be adjusting well to this kind of life. I have asked him early on when we were able to have deep meaningful conversations already, sometime when he was around 8 years old, if it worried him that he was father-less. I can still remember his answer, said to me in his usual confident tone-- "I'm used to it. When I was much younger, I used to wish you would get back together but I'm used to it now."

This matter-of-fact attitude has more recently been replaced by what I perceive to be a growing resentment against his absentee father. When I told him last year that it was father's day, thinking that we would both give my dad something, he surprised me by saying "Well, that's not an issue with me", meaning that because he had no father to celebrate it with, it wasn't something for him to be concerned about. I told him that I meant Dziadek but he told me, "Dziadek is my grandfather."

To say that I don't worry about how he will turn out is a lie. I sometimes wonder if I only had the intestinal fortitude to stand staying married to someone who obviously wasn't as thrilled about it as I was, would it have made a difference to my son? Would it have been better if he lived with both parents even if they didn't talk to each other? Would staying together for his sake have made him a better child?

Today a friend of mine commented that she liked my relationship with my son. That little comment gave me such a big boost. I know that my son and I have a special friendship because I feel it everyday when he talks to me about what happened in school, his friends, his ideas and plans with a lot of enthusiasm, the way you would to someone you know is receptive to your ideas or at least willing to listen to them. But to have an outsider take notice and see that as well gladdened my heart and made it swell. My life is ashes no more.