When I was 15, my mother had to have arthroscopic knee surgery. Nothing major, they just went in and cleaned up some loose cartilage and she had to rest up for a few days. It was a very odd and unsettling experience to have my mother unable to do all her usual activities. Even the family dog could sense it as he ensconced himself at the foot of the bed and didn't move for three days. At the time, my father was a hotel executive in charge of the entertainment department at a hotel/casino in Atlantic City. Here was a man who was used to negotiating multi-million dollar contracts with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Joan Rivers, Dom DeLuise, and Tom Jones. And yet, he was completely out of his depth when it came to running the house. My 8-year old sister and I sent him to wait in the car during the one grocery trip we were brave enough to venture on.
Several years ago, a woman in our church died suddenly. She wasn't a very young woman, probably in her early 70s, but her sudden death surprised and saddened all who knew her. At her funeral, her shaken husband referred to her as the "quarterback of the family". This seemed strange to me at the time given that the family consisted of three grown children who lived out of state and who had children of their own. And yet, as my own family has grown, I've learned that it doesn't matter how far afield the children go, the woman remains the hub around which the children and even the grandchildren revolve.
For millenia, women have been coping without their men. Sometimes for short periods, sometimes for long ones, and sometimes forever. But cope they do. Between going off to war, or dying in an industrial accident, or simply getting sick and tired of the daily grind and heading for the hills, the men disappear. Even as recently as 200 years ago, it wasn't uncommon for a widower to remarry before his late wife's corpse was even cold. Somebody had to run the house, right?
I was born at the tail end of the tumultous 1960s when women were fighting for their right to work at the same jobs as men, earn the same money as men, smoke like men, and die of heart attacks and stress like men. And many of those goals have been realized. Women now make up very close to half the work force. And yet, some things have not changed. Pick a man you know who has children and ask what size shoes one of the children wears. Betcha he can't tell you.
So despite making nearly as much money as my husband, I have a second full time job as the quarterback of this house. This isn't a simpe house, either. We have a blended family of five children. Three of my biological children spend half time with their father and my husband's son spends half time with his mother. And they are often not on the same schedule. And we have a 3 year old together who is a full time job just by herself! There is cross country practice, and dance class, riding lessons and boy scouts, there are four different school schedules, daycare, church activities. And it all lives in my head. Sure, you could poll each member of the family besides me and you could probably piece it all together. But it would be a lot more efficient to simply ask me. However, in 48 hours I'll be in a hospital bed and not available to answer anybody's questions. They are all going to have to cope -- ALL BY THEMSELVES.
You might say "oh, it'll be good for them". And I have no doubt that is true. Several people have said that it'll be good for ME; that I'll learn patience and and how to leave things to others. Want to know something? I don't want to leave things to others!!!! I like doing this shit. Most days. I can say with certitude that I get a great deal of satisfaction from doing it. It's my accomplishment. It's my sense of self. The house revolves around me and I like it that way. And it's about to go away.
What about my other full time job? It's interesting to me that I don't worry about that aspect of my life at all. I love what I do at work and I'm good at it. But I've also got an amazing staff and I've put one of them in charge and if anything needs doing he and the rest of the folks in the office will do it. I haven't lost a wink of sleep over it. After all, my job is important, but it's absolutely not as important as making sure that the towels are put away in the linen closet correctly (for those of who you may not know, towels go in the linen closet sorted by color and placed such that the bump part of the fold is facing toward the open door such that you've got a nice rounded look to the pile -- go look at how they put them away at Bed Bath and Beyond).
My house is going to go to hell. I just know it. And worst of all, I'm going to have to sit and watch it go to hell. I travel a lot for my job. And I don't worry about the house when I'm away. They can all manage without me for a few days and honestly when I'm in Washington DC (or washing-the-sea as my 3-year old calls it), I'm too busy to worry about what goes on at home. My husband always makes sure the kitchen is clean when I get home and then I take care of whatever has fallen apart in my absence. I also send copious numbers of text messages to make sure that he doesn't forget to take his son to Scouts.
Starting Tuesday, the quarterback is going down. I suppose there is some comfort in knowing when it's going to happen. I've prepared well. I've written notes. I've put things on the calendar. I've cleaned the house to within an inch of its life. I will have to learn to cope with giving orders from the sidelines. With calling plays and hoping that they are executed correctly. I will have to be forgiving, of myself and of my poor husband who can take any electronic gadget apart and fix it but who cannot seem to remember that our daughter likes to dip her finger in the milk before you put the lid on the sippy cup. I don't know why, she just does. It's one of the plays in the playbook.
And then I come to the end of my long and complicated thinking on this issue. What if the house DOESN'T fall apart? What if they all manage quite well without me? That's even more distressing. So I'll see how things work out. I have a feeling that no amount of planning is going to prepare me and my family for what is to come. We'll have to work it out together.
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