Learning to be okay with letting go

[hikermom]

Some of you who know me from the old board know my DH was an incredible skier. It was a true passion in his life, evidenced by the fact that when he died, we had 17 pairs of skis in our basement for the three of us. Back-country, downhill, cross country, telemark - you name it, we had it. He was teaching our daughter to love it and she was an amazing little skier. The two of them brought me great joy as I wound my way tentatively down the mountain, I loved seeing them laughing and zipping ahead with energy and grace.

 

When he died, I felt a tremendous burden and responsibility to keep that alive in our daughter. It was such a close connection that she had with him and I felt it my job to keep that connection alive. I'd bring her skiing and she'd complain. She hated skiing with me ("you're too slow!") but I kept trying. I'd have her go with friends and family thinking that would at least help her enjoy it more than going with me. It was always a struggle. I think she could sense my ambivalence and she responded in kind.

 

We are now in our fourth winter. Last year, skiing was limited due to extreme cold. She started to get spooked on icy trails (that is pretty much what we have here in the east) and not want to go. We kept at it though.

 

Today was her first day going this year and I got a call from the friend's mother who brought her - she wanted to come home. She was having a horrible time and didn't want to ski. At first I felt awful, as if I'd failed my husband and my daughter. Then I realized that I've been creating this expectation for myself and her that was an illusion. Part of why she loved skiing, perhaps the biggest part, was because it was something she shared with him. He is gone and all my efforts to keep it alive for her could not come to be because he is gone. I had inadvertently created a story that she fell back on to explain away her reluctance to ski - "mom doesn't like it" - when she has been refusing to go or asking to leave early for the past 2 years. I'm sure it is a very complex mix of reasons for why she's been so reluctant the last few years, far more complex than I can tease out but really do I have to? No.

 

I learned today that I have to let go of my expectations - those that I've held myself to and that I've placed on her. I also learned that I have to hold her responsible for owning her own story - that she doesn't really want to ski - and that it is just fine. She can choose her own path and not be beholden to the one we both think her father wanted for her. This is freeing in a way.

 

We'll keep skiing but I won't feel the pressure that I've placed on myself. Instead, it will be when we want to - maybe only a few times a year. I won't worry if she doesn't want to, I won't feel like a failure. I won't feel like I'm letting both him and her down. This really isn't on me - I can provide the opportunity but I can't make her love it like he did even though she loved it when he died. I think that part of her just left with him. Perhaps it is too hard for her. I think we both feel his absence more strongly on the slopes than anywhere else.

 

This is hard stuff. Each realization like this feels like he's further from us but we can't live with his ghost, particularly one that we've created for ourselves.

 

Not sure why I'm posting this here but feel perhaps others may be in a similar situation and can either relate or take hope that you can emerge from some very heavy expectations that you place on yourself to keep living your spouse's life and dreams. You can't - you have to find your own and help your children grow their own as well.

[linda5]

I feel the same way.  My husband's passion was writing novels.  He had one published, one waiting to be in print when he died, and two he was working on.  I feel that my daughter should finish his book (she went to MIZZOU Journalism School), but she wants no part of it.  I don't know if it hurts more to be doing something that her Dad loved and makes it that much more poignant, or if she's afraid she'll let him down.  We're almost at 3 years now, and I've learned to let his dreams go and for the rest of us not to feel guilty.

[RobFTC]

HM, it's hard to let go of some things that are part emotional connection and part obligation.  I hear you.  I am glad you feel like you can let go and not force some things, and I know that letting go is its own issue for you, too.  Hugs.

 

Take care,

Rob T

[SoVerySad]

HM, you are right. This is hard stuff. I find it hard to find the clarity with which I used to be able to self-assess and problem solve, so I often feel like the hamster in the spinning wheel. It has to be okay for us to let go of some things. I know for my kids, I have had to do so as well. Sometimes because it is a tradition that I can no longer manage and sometimes it is because my kids no longer find the joy in doing it without their father (the fun parent). When the guilt sets in about these things, I try to remember that my husband would just want us to be happy just as he did here in life. Things are different now - they just are - despite how we try to cling to keeping things the same. In addition, my kids interests changed as they aged even while T was still here.

 

I'm glad you've found it is okay to lighten the pressures we put on ourselves to maintain as much tradition as possible. It becomes necessary at times, but I hope it also opens up time to create new traditions that don't have the bittersweet edge that accompanies our past traditions that so often pale in comparison without our spouses here to participate.

 

Sending you tight hugs...

[Guest TooSoon]

HM, Sending you so much love and support. I completely get this.  We read constantly to M, I'm embarrassed now to admit, even before she was born.  Her father read to her for sometimes two hours before bed every night and even when he could no longer see, he pretended to read and just told stories and turned pages. I still try to get her to sit and read with me.  My parents and her Jidu (Scott's Dad) still try to read with her.  We've tried series, we've tried magazine subscriptions.  We've tried everything.  She can read like a champ but she's not a reader.  She may never be.  She lives in a house full of books with a Mom who reads so voraciously its a little nutty.  But it is just not her.  At least not right now.  And I have had to live with that and I am also embarrassed to admit that it has not been easy to live with that.  I have also wondered if it is too painful for her, that some of the most vivid memories of her father that she will carry with her are of those intimate moments, the hundreds of hours, they spent reading together.  It could be too much. 

 

I've stopped asking why.  I've met her where she is - currently that would be designing a cardboard box fort in our living room that is so elaborately decorated it should be in Architectural Digest.  In the end I felt Scott would want me to do that. 

 

My mother persists in insisting she participate in competitive sports.  M has always like swimming, not so much competitively just being in the water, so I keep that up for now once a week and swim team in the summer, but my mother is taking M to her first ice skating lesson today.  I was a (don't make fun of me) competitive figure skater as a child (until I discovered boys) and when I told M this was happening, she said, "I like skating but I don't want lessons.  Why does Nana think I need to do everything you did?"  She has a point. 

 

In my post-modern parenting world, I now believe three things are important: modeling behaviors for my child that will serve her well later in life, allowing her to be her own unique person and explore whatever she wants to explore and always being present so that she knows she can always count on me and tell me anything.  The rest went out with the bathwater long ago.  I know you're doing all of those things and more.  We are fulfilling our promise to Scott and A and to our girls.  It just doesn't always feel like it. 

 

I think you're amazing, for what it's worth.  All my love. 

[Guest Mel4072]

I can relate! I've got a four wheeler that I've been paying on for the last 3 years. It was his last hoorah! I'm ready to let it go! Right at tax return time! Hoorah for me!