LONG SLEEVED PANTS

Today my son is leaving for Alberta – he’ll be working out there with his nephew (my tenant grandson), so is gone for 28 days at a stretch. Happily, the relationship problems are mended, and his lady has definitely moved in here. Between us, we will see to the Rug Rats while Daddy is away.

Financially, this job is too good to pass up, especially when one ponders the future costs of educating three children. We know his absence is going to be difficult for the boys; Daddy is very much implicated in their day to day routine. Thank goodness for Skype, which will be used each evening to keep in touch until Daddy comes back home for his 10 day breaks.

Family and friends have been concerned for me – how I am coping with the huge change from a quiet existence to the ‘invasion’ of a whole family with young children and extra animals. Yes, it can be difficult at times, but my adaptation is nothing compared to that of my son’s lady.

It can’t be easy moving from a home and a town that she loves into her mother-in-law’s house. Not only is it situated in a remote bush area, but there is also having to adjust to ways very different from her own, sharing a bedroom with her 3 sons, listening to another woman reprimand same sons, and now having to stay behind while her man flies up and away. She has accepted it all with much grace. I hadn’t seen them, but suspected that there were occasional tears shed in private. She admitted as much when we sat alone together the other night. Telling her how I admired her attitude opened the floodgates. The heart-to-heart discussion which followed was probably the first of many to come between two women with a common goal – a determination to keep our family happy and strong.

In a couple of hours we’ll be leaving for the airport – his flight is at 2 PM. Yesterday his brother and sister, their spouses, and my son’s dad and present wife came by for a gouté and to join our toast in wishing him well. The rest of the weekend was spent with laundry and packing the tools and clothes he would need for his work. It is already snowing over there so we heeded his 5 year old son, Bali, when he told us not to forget Daddy’s long-sleeved pants.

An apt description; one that made us all SMILE.

Luv from the Bush in Quebec