Spilled Water

The very first time Julie met my children, we piled into her truck and went out to eat. It was a mild June day, and we chose to eat outside. The littles were enamored by her and insisted on sitting near her. When you have a party of five, you get used to pushing tables together to make room for everyone. That day, we pushed three two-tops together, Julie and the littles at one end, condiments in the middle, and Rhiannon and I at the other end.

Julie played with the littles. She lifted Xander so he could get a better look at the brightly painted mural on the building next door. She colored with Kennedy. Mostly, she let them have her attention. I was a nervous wreck. Eating out was not something we did often as a family, and it has always been my job to ensure that the children behave.

So, it feels inevitable when Kennedy spills her water all over the table, herself, and Julie. Rhiannon locks eyes with me, and we both hold our breath. Julie grabs a napkin, cleans the spill, and continues to color.

Rhiannon stage whispers to me, “What is happening? Why isn’t she yelling?”

“I don’t know. I think maybe this is how normal people react to water being spilled?” I answer.

Julie looks up.

“Rhiannon, is your mom always like this? Tell her to relax,” she says.

“Man, she has trauma from him. We all do,” Rhiannon offers as a way of explaining.

Something about how she says it really catches me off guard. How on earth did I allow this to go on for so long? Have we all just been holding our breath and walking on eggshells this whole time?

When you are IN it, you do not see it. You can’t. You are stuck in survival mode. You are keeping the peace. You are the safe space for the kids. You make excuses and justifications for the behavior, if you notice it at all. Mostly, you don’t. This is just how it is. How it has always been. How it will likely remain. It was not until I was free of my husband that I could truly see the lasting effects the relationship had on me. The more time that passed, the more clear things became.

After dinner, we stop for ice cream. Julie insists that the kids get back into the truck with the ice cream. I tell her that is a terrible idea, to which she says, “It’s just a truck. I can hose it out if they make a mess.”

Rhiannon looks at me. “Why didn’t you do this years ago?” she demands.

There are some who would criticize how quickly I brought Julie into our lives. Hell, I probably would have judged me too. But I do not regret it. We all had some healing to do. We had to reset our nervous systems. Julie helped us to do that. Her calm demeanor and nurturing disposition were such a contradiction to what we were used to. It took some adjusting, of course. Over time, though, everyone was more at ease.

One of my kids’ favorite “Julie-isms” is, “They are making more right now.”

Suddenly, it was okay to make a mess or break something. Things could be replaced—what a foreign concept. We spent time bonding, watching movies, playing games, doing puzzles. She made life feel easy. Lighter.

I always say that Julie loved me back to life. She did.

But a very big part of that was how she loved my kids—with no conditions, no judgments. She accepted them and went about loving them like she’d been around since day one.

Ask any single mother what the key to her heart really is, and she will tell you that how you treat her children matters as much as, if not more than, how you treat her.