Cats who expect cuddles

Going back to school. Why does he have to go? Two extremely painful essays by a grieving mother. I forgot my car in central Athens. Perspective, relativity and the original paradise which we all lose.

After the Christmas holidays, Lorenzo — my eldest, who is about to turn five — is once again saying that he does not want to go to kindergarten. It is difficult for me, and it made me think of something that I wrote in September, when the school year started.

I published it in Spanish then, but had not translated it into English yet. But now it feels very relevant again, so here you go.

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Last week, Lorenzo — my eldest, aged four and a half — went back to kindergarten. After three years going to one in which he only spoke English, he has now started a new bilingual school, where both Greek and English are spoken. For a while, he had been saying that he wanted to learn Greek.

The first day was sheer enthusiasm. The second day, enthusiasm had started to wane. From the third day on, school was a sentence, and there was no way to get him excited about going. But the school year had just started: what were we supposed to do now?

I tried to understand Lorenzo, to see if I could help somehow. We had had more than a month of holidays, of friends visiting, camping trips to the beach, and, basically, spending 24 hours a day together. Now, we were having to be separated for a large part of the day.

Every morning Lorenzo sobbed at the school entrance: every goodbye was a heartbreak. Every day he asked the same question: Why do I have to go? I don’t want to go.

I listened, and I asked myself: Why does he have to go? Going to school being good for his development aside, my partner Irene and I need that essential time to do things we simply cannot do while he is here (essentially, work).

But these adult motives do not make sense for a child who lives in a state of fun, and who is always living in the present moment. I think of the system we live in, in which we don’t raise children in villages or communities anymore (even less so when — like in our case — we live away from our families).

I explained to Lorenzo that he would learn new things at the kindergarten (like Greek, which he was so keen to learn!), that he would make friends like he did in his former kindergarten, that he could play with new toys, ones which we didn’t have at home. Nothing seemed to land: “I want to stay at home with you or mamá”.

That’s when I realized that there was “something” — for want of a better word to explain the sensation — connected to the preciousness of childhood which I feared I would be breaking. By insisting Lorenzo goes to kindergarten, I don’t want to be the one who breaks this “something”.

What am I talking about? There is in Lorenzo, indeed in anyone his young age, a bright-eyedness about the world, a series of characteristics and behaviors which are as fragile as glass, which won’t last long.

How long will it be for example that Lorenzo is bullied for whatever reason, forcing him to abandon his tenderness in a survival attempt, to appear “hard” or “tough”? How often will we, as his parents, be able to intervene, seeing as it feels we ourselves toughened up to be able to make it like other adults do?

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Since he started going to school, Lorenzo often tells Irene and me a form of the following: “I love you” / “you’re my whole heart” / “you’re my love”, repeatedly in Spanish and Italian. He asks for many more hugs than he ever did, including in the middle of the night. One early morning he asked: “Papá, will you give me the biggest, bestest, most enormous hug in the world?”... before promptly falling back asleep.

I shared my anxiety with a friend, who is a grandmother. She said: “This marveling at the world, which you say is made of glass, broke in my grandchildren. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s partly because they also close up. Life does this to everyone. Childhood hurts, always.”

“Growing up means that they (and we all) close up, right?” I said.

“Yes,” she said. “Sometimes I can’t even look at the photos of my grandkids when they were younger. You see something in their eyes which is hard to name, and which isn’t there anymore.”

“Is it something like innocence?”

“Yes, put simply. I think it’s a time in which they’re taken in by this marveling for the world. It’s a sort of original paradise.”

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On the fourth day of Lorenzo starting kindergarten, Irene traveled for work. She was gone for ten days with León, Lorenzo’s younger brother who was ten months at the time (another time, I’ll write about how the system doesn’t help families with children, not least when the mothers have to work and parent at the same time).

The thing is that these days, in the effort of managing domestic chores and raising a child by myself, I’ve had to stop myself from writing to Irene when she was away on more than one occasion.

For example, the school needed Lorenzo’s vaccination records. It took me two days to find the booklet — even though it’s sat on the same dusty shelf since we moved to the house over three years ago.

Why would I write to Irene? Impulsively, I’ve asked at least two questions which I could have spared her, if I had tried a little harder:

• When’s the electricity the cheapest? We’ve lived in this house for three years and I could have asked the landlord or surfed the internet — which I eventually did, but only after I had sent Irene this message first.

• Do we only have one waterproof bedsheet? With that question, I give away the identity of the person who’s been the only one buying our sheets and changing them regularly…

I thought again about the mental load and how work is divided in a household, and how sometimes men struggle with that. A few days ago, Irene shared this Instagram post with me:

Is this post for my benefit or the newsletter’s? “Ah, could be for both…😉” she smiled.

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Two days later, on a Monday night, I was in Athens, where I interviewed Rubén Magnano, the former Argentine basketball coach who made history with:

• the silver medal in the World Basketball Championships in Indianapolis in 2002, beating the U.S. and its NBA — the best league in the world

• the only basketball gold medal for Argentina at the 2004 Olympics

The interview was about Argentina’s Golden Generation, Manu Ginóbili (Argentina’s best basketball player ever) and basketball in general. Once I’d turned the audio recorder off, we got to talking about fatherhood and how Magnano and his family decided where they were going to live. 

I mentioned, in my general state of fatigue, about how challenging times seemed to be ahead, when our second son would be in his terrible twos or threes. At 68, Magnano is already grandfather to three. His wife, who was by his side, laughed too. “When they’re 10 months, the problems you have are from when they’re 10 months. And when they’re 34, the problems that you have are from when they’re 34”.

Surely it’ll be so. So many parents tell me the same. I just hope that the physical demands ease up a bit. There are weeks when Irene and I are simply wiped out (yep, as if we can’t take a moment more of it).

Take the sometimes absurd mistakes that I am making lately.

I was so relaxed leaving Magnano after our interview, in a hotel in central Athens. It was past 11pm… and it dawned on me that the parking garage where I left the car had already been closed for over an hour (and yes, the attendant had told me, rather emphatically in Greek, that the garage closed at 10pm). 

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Since the deed was already done, I didn’t break into a sweat. I looked down at my phone, to a message from Irene, who was in Sweden. I called her, we laughed, and I took a taxi home, 30 kilometers away. It was an unexpected expense — but what else could I do at that point?

It is true: I’ve worried about Lorenzo’s daily suffering for a while now. I spent the best part of a week consoling him every time I dropped him off at school; sometimes to his heartbreaking cries, sometimes to shouts and screams. I could see all of his anxiety, but felt it too with those marks his little body left as he clutched tightly to my leg, pleading with me not to leave him.

Another friend, who has a daughter, said I had to let Lorenzo be. I replied that I thought I already had. It is after all Lorenzo’s fourth year at kindergarten, and only the first year was as difficult as this. Fear of the new has something to do with this, certainly.

She also advised me to trust Lorenzo more, which is making more sense to me. Sometimes I don’t manage, and I realize I need to.

But some things, with reason, freak me out: a few weeks ago, Lorenzo and a friend of his were egging each other on about who ran the fastest. At full speed, Lorenzo crossed the road without looking.

My chest tightens when I think about what could have happened. It’s a brutal anxiety, which I last felt at reading these two (difficult, beautiful) essays from late summer 2023 by Sarah Wildman, a grieving mother, writer and New York Times journalist:

• My Daughter’s Future Was Taken From Her, and From Us

• I Am Trying to See What My Beautiful Daughter Saw

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On the seventh day of this heart-wrenching week, I took Lorenzo to kindergarten by taxi, since my car was still in the garage in Athens.

I tried to quickly leave him at the gate, as if to shorten the (mutual) suffering.

He screamed and cried. He ran to give me one last hug. It was hard to hear that pain from behind the now closed gate, as I went on my long journey of taking a bus and then the metro to retrieve my car from Athens.

With that problem solved, I tried to pick Lorenzo up earlier than usual. But he was last out of the door. Yes, I got there last. But on this seventh day “something” (I still don’t know what it is) had changed. Lorenzo was in a good mood, happy, smiling, joking: “I knew you were going to come last,” he told me, “but don’t worry. I didn’t cry all day!”

I can only speculate whether one or any other of my strategies from the previous days worked — whether they were my own ideas, or those from elsewhere. I painted a little heart for him on each hand; I gave him photos of the family to take with him in his rucksack; I hadn’t stretched out any goodbyes; he took two shells he found on the beach with him.

I don’t know why Lorenzo was so sad in those first few days back at school. Perhaps we underestimated how overwhelming the new was (new school, new schoolmates, new teachers), and the need to adapt, just as his mother was away on a trip.

I’d love to hear from other parents, especially the dads, who can share similar experiences with me (for those for whom it went well, I’m happy for you!) For those whose kids suffered at going back to school, how was it for you?

These were days of facing the impotence of not being able to help my children when they need me most, of not being able to shelter them.

I don’t know why Lorenzo had been so happy that day, but I was of course so happy for him. We spent the afternoon of the seventh day in a park; we built a cave with twigs; and when a little cat came along, we played together. Lorenzo started to cuddle the cat gently, and asked if we could bring him home (quite forgetting the four stray cats who we feed daily!)

We went to football, for the third time together. After months of asking, we gave in and are sending Lorenzo to a training school. Lorenzo stepped into a locker room for the first time, though it was empty — the children usually come dressed. I was surprised at the ease with which Lorenzo made his way around this place, as if he knew about the beautiful and unique ceremony that went into making a locker room what it is: the place before it all kicks off.

I won’t go on about the rest of our day to not wear you out, but it was one of the happiest, loveliest days that I can remember of us together. At home, at dinner, Lorenzo came out with one if his sudden thoughts, apropos of nothing:

— Nacho.
— Yes?
— Will you die before me? I want us to die on the same day: you, me, mamá and León.

I suppose that the invisible thread — which is difficult to integrate — is that all of the mishaps of daily life don’t need to be any more than they are — mishaps. They’re challenges for us to keep learning and following, but no more than that. The most important thing is to carry on, enjoying the moment, everyone together, for as many days as possible. There are so many kittens waiting for a cuddle.

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Once again, thank you for reading, commenting, sending mails and sharing this newsletter with others. It’s always wonderful to welcome new subscribers. I promise to get back to those who have written to me, as soon as possible. Don’t hesitate to write, even if I don’t get back to you immediately 🙂

Stay well.

A hug,

Nacho

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📣 Nabeelah Shabbir, a member of this community and a friend, edited and improved this newsletter with lots of love. Thanks, Nabeelah! 🙏 If there are mistakes, they are my fault, not hers! (and please forgive me for them!)