Divorce, Milestone Events, And Best Laid Plans

 

Franny graduated from elementary school last week. When my sister Grace and I scanned the front row of the bleachers looking for our reserved seats, I was relieved on two counts.

One: Franny had wisely seated Grace and me several seats from Prince, his wife, and his parents.

Two: My former in-laws hadn’t taken my seats, as they had when Luca graduated, forcing me to sit high up in the stands. Instead of being an unwelcome guest at my daughter’s graduation, I felt like a regular mother wiping away proud tears instead of sobbing prolifically into a drenched kleenex.

When Luca graduated from sixth grade, he hated me. Completely aligned with Prince at that point, he found me in the stands and screamed at me for showing up. This time, however, Luca was furious with his dad. He sat in the alumni section of the bleachers, speaking briefly to Prince’s father King Machiavelli, who approached Luca to ask him how to find something on his iPhone.

Unlike Luca, who spent his early years trapped in high-conflict divorce crossfire, Franny has managed to dodge the whole mess. Blessed with innate resilience and emotional intelligence, Franny’s ability to focus on the things she could control left her free to form solid friendships and love learning. I sniffled as I listened to her and two classmates sing a few lines of Joni Mitchell’s “Circle Game.”

 

Her progressive school teaches kids the values of community, accountability, and ownership of one’s own education. Franny completed her early education gestalt; she absorbed all that her elementary school had to offer and is ready for the next phase of her young life.

As her mother, I could not be more proud and grateful.

After graduation was over, I watched Franny pose for photos with Prince, Sarah, and Luca — he was invited to join the family and his grandmother took the picture. I was glad to see the Machiavellis didn’t exclude him. Despite my low estimation of that clan, however, I felt a tug that I wasn’t part of the picture. There is nothing like a child’s milestone event to remind you that your best laid plan went astray.

And yet there is a freedom that comes from letting go of the vision you had for your life. When I sat in the bleachers four years ago feeling like an unwelcome guest who had crashed his graduation, I never imagined that he and I would stand together at his sister’s graduation, the gash that once divided us stitched together and all but forgotten.

 

“The Circle Game” – Joni Mitchell

Yesterday a child came out to wonder
Caught a dragonfly inside a jar 
Fearful when the sky was full of thunder 
And tearful at the falling of a star 

Then the child moved ten times round the seasons
Skated over ten clear frozen streams 
Words like when you’re older must appease him 
And promises of someday make his dreams

And the seasons they go round and round 
And the painted ponies go up and down 
We’re captive on the carousel of time 
We can’t return we can only look 
Behind from where we came 
And go round and round and round 
In the circle game * 

Sixteen springs and sixteen summers gone now 
Cartwheels turn to car wheels thru the town 
And they tell him take your time it won’t be long now
Till you drag your feet to slow the circles down 

And the seasons they go round and round 
And the painted ponies go up and down 
We’re captive on the carousel of time 
We can’t return we can only look 
Behind from where we came 
And go round and round and round 
In the circle game

So the years spin by and now the boy is twenty 
Though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true
There’ll be new dreams maybe better dreams and plenty
Before the last revolving year is through

And the seasons they go round and round 
And the painted ponies go up and down 
We’re captive on the carousel of time 
We can’t return we can only look 
Behind from where we came 
And go round and round and round 
In the circle game