Aug. 8, 2016

Cozy is fine. She’s with her abuela in Morelia, Mexico in a serious Spanish-language immersion class, going to the park with her tia, and, by all video accounts, having a blast. Andrea and I came to Isla Mujeres without her so I could start teaching this anthropology field research course. Cozy joins us on August 16 and we will be the reunited island family.

Sounds great, right?

I mean what couple with a toddler wouldn’t want to have a few child-free weeks on a tropical island? It is certainly great for Andrea and I. This is my second year teaching a summer course at the amazing Isla Mujeres Ethnographic Field School and to have our own time is a true godsend. We sleep in and stay out late and when we walk down Hidalgo, the main street, the merchants shout, “Hey, honeymooners!” as they try to sell us trinkets and Cuban cigars. It’s a trip in time that’s allowed us to remember who we were together before we were “parents.”

But the missing part. That part can be rough.

When we started on this experiment, I thought we’d have regular video hookups with Cozy via FaceTime. That’s how we did it last year when I came to Isla first and Andrea and Cozy stayed in Morelia for a few weeks. Technology has often been our link when I am out of town. I love seeing my daughter make goofy faces at me on her mom’s laptop.

A lot of therapy over the years helped me learn that some of my core relationship issues revolved around attachment and fear of being abandoned. Good therapy can take you way back to things that happened to you early in life, before you thought much about the world other than, “Wow.” My big “breakthrough” happened when I suddenly remembered how my parents would drop with an elderly neighbor when they went out of town for Amway conventions in the 1960s. I was maybe 3. I remembered thinking they would never come back and then being overwhelmed with emotion when they actually did come to get me. My apologies to all subsequent relationships. I’m better now.

So you can guess I don’t want to inflict that stress on my own daughter. This situation is different. She’s with family who spoil her to death. Andrea’s mother came to Portland from Mexico for the birth and was one of the first people on Earth to hold Cozy. She guards her like the most precious child. She is well fed and entertained and fortunately was out of the path of Hurricane Earl that almost hit our island last week.

We got to the island on July 29th and after a few days organized a FaceTime chat. Andrea’s sister, Viri, rang in with Cozy on her lap. We were so thrilled to see her and Cozy tried to kiss the screen. We were singing and hearing her new words and all smiles. Then I think she suddenly realized that we weren’t actually there and started crying with a horribly stressed look on her face. Her wise aunt just hung up. It was the right thing to do but I could feel a Mayan dagger plunged into my heart. And that was that. She won’t see us until we’re standing on the docks at Puerto Jaurez on the 16th, the day before her second birthday. (We plan to welcome her back with a big celebration.)

We’re on “Island of Women,” but it’s really “Isla Niños.” There are so many little kids here, it’s hard not to be reminded of ours at every turn. Kids at the beach, kids riding with their family on motorcycles, a gang of four little girls who play in the alleyway of our hotel. Last year when we had Cozy’s first birthday party here, it was not hard to round up the local rug rats to have a go at the piñata. They are all stand-ins for our Bug.

So that’s the challenge. I want to enjoy every second with my beautiful, brilliant wife and not think my child is “gone.” I’m trying not to worry that she’s unsafe or that she’s forgetting about us or preferring the attention she’s getting to our less exotic life in Portland. Will she have grown so much I don’t recognize her? Just don’t think about it.

I don’t need to string up Christmas lights to get messages from her in the upside down (OK, we just burned through all 8 episodes of Stranger Things). It not time to go mental. But missing your child is a powerful thing. Looking forward to hugging her is like all the Christmas Advent calendars I had as a kid rolled into one. One day closer.

I’ve been writing a lot about empathy in this blog and I’m getting a bite size chunk of the struggle of parents in the military or in prison who are far from their children. It’s got to be rough for parents who are separated and have work out custody arrangements. And we are not even touching the experience of actually losing a child. Lord. We probably grow more than our kids through all this. Letting go just a little bit. Not so easy. And it’s only sixteen years until she heads off to college. Help!

For now it’s only eight days until Cozy and I are building castles in the sand and then watching them melt into the sea.

Dad Love 1: Dad Love

Dad Love 2: A Star is Born

Dad Love 3: Death and U2

Dad Love 4: You’re So Far Away

Dad Love 5: Flash, Ah! He’ll Save Every One of Us!

Dad Love 6: First Steps

Dad Love 7: I Need a Pep Talk

Dad Love 8: I’m on Drugs