Be Brave

Wow!  I'm not sure I should be doing a journal when I am as emotional as I feel right now.  The computer screen is blurry through the tears as I sit here and ask myself, what the heck am I doing?  How could I be so selfish?

Two of my grandchildren have been staying with me every weekend for the past 6 weeks.  Damien is 9 and Aliyah is 5.  Their parents are very recently divorced, and the kids live with dad.  Dad works 12 hours a day 7 days a week right now as he owns a roofing company and is trying to get in as many work days as he can while the weather allows.  If the kids don't stay with me, they stay at daycare.  I feel they get enough daycare during the week as they are dropped off at 7 am and picked up at 8 pm every day.  Also, when the kids are with me, it allows them time to spend with their mom, my daughter.

Tonight when I dropped the kids off, Damien so cheerfully said, "see you next weekend nana!"  But 5 year old Aliyah had such sad eyes and I could see tears forming.  She was trying so hard to be brave, but was struggling terribly.  Last weekend, she sobbed as she said goodbye to her mom, who was also sobbing.  Her auntie Steph and I standing nearby were in tears as well.  "Please mommy, don't leave me", were the heart wrenching words we listened to over an over again.  When she was about to leave her mom tonight, "be brave", she was told.  "When you are sad, mommy gets very sad as well".  "Be brave".  As I think of it now, it seems likes an utterly ludicrous request to ask a 5 year old being torn from her mom.

Tonight, my little Dolly, as I have called her from birth, was trying her darndest to be brave, and she did quite well.  She never shed a tear when she left her mom.  Even when I dropped her off at her dads, she held strong through many hugs, kisses, and I love you's.   But when I saw her eyes get red and droop to the ground, I knew being brave was almost too much to ask.  "You are being so brave" I told her, "even though I can see you are sad".  That was the wrong thing to say.  Her bravery crumbled and the tears began to roll.  "Please nana, don't leave me.  I want to stay with you.  Please don't go".  Of course my bravery began to crumble as well.  I picked her up in my arms and held her tight smothering her with kisses, then forced her off to her dad.  She continued to sob and ask me to stay.   I walked down the hall of the condo and was almost out when I heard dad say, "ok you can walk nana out to the door".  No, no no.  It started all over again.  "I'll see you next weekend", I promised her.  I took her back to dad who had to pry her arms from around my neck and her legs from around my waist.

I came home wondering how I could possibly move to BC and leave these darlings behind.  A few weeks ago Aliyah had asked me why I was moving.  I told her that I wanted to live in the mountains.  "But nana", she said so calmly yet quietly, "I want you to stay here with me".

My daughter really needs me right now, and so do her kids,  How can I think of leaving them all because I want to live in the mountains.  How can I leave my kung fu just when I am having one of my best years yet.  Because I am leaving, I am not taking on a leadership role with teaching the kids.  The reasoning behind it makes so much sense, yet is still difficult for me. These past weeks, I have felt like a bird that has had their wings clipped and is no longer able to fly.  I am home when I am in the mountains.  But shouldn't home be here where my family is?

It's always so tough to make decisions.  How do we ever know just what the right one is.  How do we know which one will bring success and which one will bring disaster?  I look forward to having the kids come and spend time with me in the mountains, perhaps instilling in them the same kind of peace that the mountains bring to me.  I hope to expose them to the same kind of passions and respect that I have in the outdoors.  But what about now?  What will happen to them in the meantime?   What about family pumpkin carving at halloween when all of the family gets together?  Gatherings at birthdays, afternoons of baking with my daughters when the holidays get near.

"I'll see you next weekend", I promised.  Next weekend....tournament weekend, and my weekend to move the rest of my belongings.  Yet somehow, no matter what, I intend to keep that promise to an adorable 5 year old.  Be brave?  What about me?  Can I be brave and go through with this move?  I think I will soon find out.  My only comfort is knowing that if things do not work out, and I find I need to return to Alberta to be with my kids and grandkids and stay strong in kung fu, I can do just that.

"Some say fate is beyond our command, but I know better.  Our destiny is within us.  You just have to be brave enough to see it".