Pity Party?

For those of you who don't know, my husband Greg works in Wyoming during the week, sometimes through a weekend making it 2 weeks. This has been our life for 5 of our 7 married years. He leaves Sunday night and comes home Thursday or Friday night. So I'm a single mom during the week. Now you read this and most likely you think one of two things -either you make a face and say, "How do you do it," or you shrug your shoulders and say, "Big deal".

The only reason I bring this up and write about it is because it IS a big deal. And I get all kinds of reactions, mostly from women whose husbands almost never leave them with the kids overnight. There are actually a lot of women in my boat. In my ward alone I can count 5 off the top of my head whose husbands are gone during the week. Maybe more. That's kind of a lot. I didn't know that until just recently when I was with a fellow loner mom and she was telling me how many of us there are and how we should do dinner rounds during the week since we all live in the same neighborhood and we all have to make dinner for our kids anyway -why not each of us do one big dinner a week? It doesn't sound all bad.

But for as many of us loner moms as we are, it still is not the norm. When Greg decided to start his own oil and gas company and the trek up to Wyoming (from Las Vegas where we lived at the time) began, I was a little shocked. Actually I was aghast. He was driving 12-13 hours just to go to work and he would be gone for 10-14 days at a time! That was just crazy to me! I cried a lot when he would leave. But I was quickly initiated into the no pity troup of loner women. Let me explain.

My mother-in-law, Carol, is the queen of doing it all by yourself. She and Lorne had 8 kids and lived on a farm outside of Calgary, Alberta. She would often be alone for weeks and months at a time. In fact it was quite the norm. She operated heavy equipment, ran that farm, had an incredible garden, cows (probably other animals I'm forgetting) and all those kids and she did it all by herself. She also cleaned and cooked like crazy -to this day she can "whip up" meals on end from scratch. I'm not joking when I say she can pretty much do anything when it comes to house and home. Greg and I always tell her we just need her and our food storage and we can handle any disaster. She's that knowledgeable.

This is Carol and 5 of her boys this past Christmas!


The ONLY downside to that is that she simply has no use for offering sympathy to someone like me. I have it pretty easy if you ask her. And when I think about what she went through to keep things going at home so Lorne could provide for his family and all the women in the early days of the church whose husbands left on missions for years at a time or the women throughout history whose husbands led the nation to battle or in politics and left their wives and children for long periods of time...I realize it's a cake walk at my house.

Greg has told me countless times how surprised he is I don't complain very much about his being gone and how much he appreciates it. But after hearing his mom's stories for many years and how she goes nuts inside when women complain their husbands are going on a business trip for a few days, and how terrible it is they are going to have to be alone, I know better! It's just one of those things she will not tolerate -a pity party for being alone.

So now I've got mixed feelings when I hear women complain about the same thing. Over the years I've hardened (toughened?) up a bit too. I've got some Carol in me now! But at the same time I know how hard it has been for me and the kids and that makes me feel some serious compassion for anyone in my boat.

The thing that helps the most is knowing that it's hard for Greg too. He can't stand being gone for more than a few days now. The kids are getting older and he always tells me he refuses to let them grow up without him. Yay for me! He's got some things in the works that will change all this being gone nonsense -it might get worse before it gets better -but it WILL get better and for the most part will end long before I ever reach Carol's record number of years doing it all alone. It has certainly made me appreciate the time we do get to spend all together. And it has made me appreciate Carol that much more too. If she hadn't have done all that work, if she had given up because it was just too hard, I might not have been lucky enough to be part of her family...and that would be a shame!

So if I happen to hear a woman talk about how their husband works out of town during the week, I listen up -plenty o' compassion comin her way! Let's be friends! How 'bout you come for dinner tomorrow night? Bring your kids!

On the other hand, if someone complains about a couple of DAYS of having to take care of their kids without daddy, I'll try really hard to put on my pity face. But it might end up looking like I just ate a sour grape. Sorry.