I was thinking of George Macdonald’s fairy tale “The Light Princess” the other day. The entire story is a pun about the two meanings of lightness; the princess floats and laughs, and only learns to sink and walk the earth when she experiences sadness, heaviness of spirit, for the first time.
The twins are gaining weight too. I see it in their eyes, in how they walk. Abel in particular has studied two very heavy issues in school this year; slavery and the Holocaust. He’s reading a horrific autobiography, written by a Polish man who survived 5 different death camps, heard about his father’s brutal murder from an eyewitness he met in one of those camps. The man is still alive and lives locally; he’s supposed to visit the class at the end of this unit. Abel is very excited about this.
It’s not that it’s new to them, this weight of the world we live in. They had picture books of Anne Frank and Harriet Tubman (I know; sounds horrible to me too, but they were very well done). They have grown up in a country where, walking out the door in the morning, they were confronted by a large family living in a tent, no electricity or running water. The family used to ring our doorbell and present us with an enormous bucket, which we would fill from our tap, and then watch them lug it across the open sandy space separating our tiled and shaded home from their ragged-edge living quarters. The twins had Mauritanian friends from school whose families still had slaves, although they were euphemistically called “sisters” and “brothers.” We would visit and watch the dark-skinned “sister” hanging out the laundry and bringing us drinks while the lighter-skinned “sister” took Ilsa to her room to play. I don’t know how much of this they realized at the time, however.
The twins have experienced two deaths of people close to them; one the father of their friends who was shot in the street, one a woman they called “aunt” who taught them French, who was brutally murdered by a man whom, up until that time, they had called “uncle.” On top of that, they lost their grandmother, my mother, 18 months ago. They have said multiple goodbyes to friends and places, experienced civil unrest and a parent struggling with depression. These things have added gravitas, weight, to their lives. But I watched them tuck these things away with the resilience of childhood. Events may shape our lives and characters, but sometimes they are buried deep.
Part of maturing is realizing that these things happen to everyone, around the world. Knowing that people are dying in Brazilian landslides and Haitian cholera, that your good friend is missing a week of school because there is rioting near his home in Tunis, that a friend’s 17 year-old sister just lost all her hair to chemotherapy. Wondering how the family continues to cope without their father; it’s been a year and a half now.
Of course I want my children to be aware of the suffering that goes on in the world, to be sympathetic and concerned and do what they can to help. Being able to articulate your own experiences helps with this, I think, and that comes with age. Being aware of others is part of why we chose to raise them overseas. We wanted them to have a broader view of the world. (There’s a partial answer for those of you who asked why we moved initially. I have not forgotten those questions. I’m just saving them up for when I can’t think of anything else to write about)
But it’s interesting to watch them, in this transition from childhood to adolescence, young adulthood. They’re 13 ½. Maybe it’s just the accumulated weight, and their age is coincidence, but I think that it’s more, that it’s burgeoning maturity, adding weight to their eyes, to their knowledge of the world.
7 comments
January 14, 2011 at 12:02 am
Nan
Becoming a citizen of the world is such a gradual thing. In 2009, my kids said “Huh. D’you realise, we haven’t seen ANY dead people on the road here?” It was an “Oh yeah” moment, but still innocent. They had not connected, really, with the reality of losing someone in one of Trinidad’s daily car crashes. Now, they see something or hear something and Chas says nothing, just looks at me as if to say “I don’t know what to say, and my brothers don’t understand.”
Sometimes I wish that innocence could be preserved. Other times I’m glad the kids can really relate to different people. Max says, “Why don’t the people in Haiti go and live somewhere better? Don’t they have family they could stay with?” He would happily let a whole Haitian family move in here. In his mind, they are West Indians. How hard could it be?
January 14, 2011 at 12:03 am
Nan
P.S. When I read your title I thought “AAARGH! Et tu, Nomad?” So glad your post isn’t about your January Diet Plan!
January 14, 2011 at 12:47 am
Megan Schell
I appreciate your point of view so much Elizabeth. I feel like I’m at the beginning and you are at the end describing the view between. It helps give me perspective on where I am. Big hugs from France.
January 17, 2011 at 8:07 pm
Jennifer
I love this post.
January 17, 2011 at 9:46 pm
LG
yes, yes, yes. And it makes me sad sometimes that my choices to “do good” in this world, to live lives that help the poor of the world, has meant so much heartbreak for my kids. Their own 2 evacuations from war zones, one definitely in the thick of it, then having them live through my own time of civil unrest. You just don’t want that for your kids. For my oldest, it was only 7 years later that he began to blog about his experiences being evacuated from the war in Ivory Coast.
January 26, 2011 at 4:04 am
eileen
Your kids have a mother who watches them grow in all directions, and provides guidance. No one can ask for more that that. And your writing, as always, is beautiful!
February 10, 2011 at 11:07 pm
Ariana
Tears came to my eyes as I read this post. I grew up in the Philippines, and it was of course shocking to me to see beggars with no legs sitting on the streets, reaching their hands out to me for money, or children my age with scars and ragged clothes living on the streets. So much suffering. I don’t really recall specific talks about these issue from my parents, but hey acknowledged that it was really sad, that we are lucky, and we should help. My daughter is four, and we work to make sure she knows that our life is luxurious, through and through, that our possessions, shelter, relative safety, regular meals are not something that everyone enjoys.