JT has a mouth prone to cavities and so for the last year he's been going to the dentist every 4 months instead of every 6 months. He's had to have a filling at the last two visits and this has generally made him cranky.
It also means that he dreads going to the dentist.
His 4 month check-up was last week and when he was saying goodbye to his other mom last Sunday, she wished him good luck at the dentist and asked me to let her know how the check-up goes.
Why? I asked myself.
When she was a part of our daily life, we would have phoned her on our way home from the dentist. We used to talk about her all of the time. But she's not a daily presence in our life anymore, a choice that she made. It's a choice that I fundamentally do not understand. I do understand that for JT's behalf, I have to pretend that she cares about his well-being. I don't want him to feel the pain of her departure any more than he does, so I pretend, reminding JT that she loves him when the topic of Lisa comes up.
Despite the fact that the topic of Lisa comes up less and less often, it's getting harder and harder to keep up the façade that the Mommy who walked out of his daily life actually matters to his daily life.
I believe that it is in the daily living that a child is raised and learns the values that will shape his world. It is in the daily life that a family is made. The routines, the patterns, the commonplace moments, and the inside jokes....these are the daily life that JT and I have.
And Lisa is no longer a part of it.
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