Alison Hodgson

Expert on the etiquette of perilous times.

A Brief Correspondence

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Yesterday Eden wrote this email to her dad in Toronto.  She had asked to use my computer and carefully typed this: 


Dear daddy, I reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally miss you. did you get the fancy hotel soap?:) well ok please listen, did you love ninja? or did you just love us, and not want to hurt our feelings. I don”t want us to have a dog that you have no part of. that you do not like. daddy I wrote this my self. love Eden. bye-bye.


I love the whole thing.  It’s just a little email and so much more.  I love her concern about Paul, the wisdom in knowing that parents often go along with things for the pleasure it brings our children, for love.  


“…that you have no part of.  that you do not like.”  It’s so easy to just want something and not really care about another’s needs and wishes.


And then, “daddy I wrote this my self.”  This undoes me.


Paul’s reply:

Aw, thank you for your note Eden. I miss you a lot too. I’ve got some soap & its a little fancy – you can be the judge. I thought Ninja was adorable & I’m sure I would love him a lot too if he was ours. You’re so sweet to ask me. I love you. Bye bye angel.

‘Cept Only One

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Years ago, a dear friend of mine, was a helping a refugee family from Africa. Soon after they moved here the father died leaving his wife and several small children. My friend, a kindly soul and social worker by profession, took them under her wing. On one occasion the mother became ill and my friend accompanied her to the hospital.

A pregnancy was suspected and the doctor asked my friend to ask the woman if she might be pregnant. The woman, a devout Christian and a widow for more than a year, took umbrage with the insinuation.

“I HAVE NOT LAIN WITH A MAN!” she said righteously, “-‘cept only one.”

That went right into the vernacular.

I’ve been thinking about this lately. Stay with me. As much as I’ve enjoyed announcing the first part of the statement, especially when Paul has been traveling over much, it’s the second half I’m talking about: “Cept only one.”

I live in the exceptions.

A couple months ago, at church, I asked a pastor to pray for me. We were up at the altar together. She put her hand on my back. I think I was already crying. Before she began she asked, “How is your marriage?”

I blinked, confused. I had asked her to pray for me about the rebuilding and the anxiety I felt waiting for insurance, making so many decisions and worrying that we were making irrevocable mistakes. I was talking about money!

“Good.” I said. “It’s good. Tender. Sweet.” She was looking at me intently. “We’re human, we still grate…but the marriage is sweet.”

And that’s true.

Before the fire Paul and I both could tend towards the belief that maybe the other didn’t have the best handle on HOW.MUCH.I.DO.FOR.THIS.FAMILY!

It didn’t come up a lot, it wasn’t a volatile grievance, more of a quiet frustration that would some times flare from either side.

The good thing about a near death experience wherein you lose all your possessions is that you get a shot of clarity and the scope widens. This year Paul and I have been stretched so thin, have run so long and hard that -even if I still cared to – I don’t have the time to keep score. Any thing he does, any call he makes, I’m just so thankful that I didn’t. My appreciation and gratitude for him has grown exponentially. Only the two of us know what this year has been. We’ve been surrounded by amazingly supportive people who have gone the distance but only Paul and I have been entirely inside it and there is intimacy and tenderness here.

A few months ago Paul needed to have something checked out. He had cancer (non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma) when he was a boy so he doesn’t mess around. It was one of those situations where it could be a virus or cancer which was not really an either/or I needed rattling around in the back of my head – ever – but especially when I was busy rebuilding a house that someone burned down. I really didn’t need that, but there it was…rattling.

In one way the timing was perfect. We were under a lot of stress, what with the kids, the house, Paul’s heavy workload, insurance and so forth, but far enough removed from the fire itself that we could have become complacent but cue Paul’s mortality stage left and wham! I’mjust.so.thankful.to.have.him.

Burn down the house.

Withhold all the money.

Just leave me my husband; please don’t make me live without Paul.

What has been coming to me over and over this past year is that I want to love him better. I want to love him the best that I can. I think I have and I do…except…

when he wakes me up out of a sound sleep listening to something on his laptop or drinks too loudly or won’t go outside to check on the kids or forgets to turn on the coffee or asks so many freaking questions about the house that he has already asked and FORGOTTEN!

So we’re still human and there are swaths in this strong and beautiful marriage that have not love.

If I want to love Paul fully I need to look at the exceptions, where I don’t choose, where I withhold, where I place conditions on, love.

Aunt Ali’s Sleep Clinic

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This little person spent the night at our house last Saturday.  Torey traded her for my three kids and considered herself the winner in the bargain.  Wizzie do what Wizzie do and what she do is wake up in the middle of the night almost every single night and scream her sweet little head off until Torey (desperate and crazed) pulls her into their bed and then the real fun begins.  Sure Willa finally shuts her little gob and – technically – falls asleep, but she does so sideways so that she is kicking one parent and head butting the other.
I took this Naughtsy Taughtsy a few weeks ago, kept her up a little late and then when she woke up in the wee hours, changed her bum, petted her and put her back in bed.  She fussed a bit, but was too tired to give it her all.  Within minutes she was asleep.  
Back home she reverted to her old pattern so we scheduled another night at Aunt Ali’s sleep clinic.
When I awoke at two and couldn’t get back to sleep until after six I questioned the wisdom/hubris/ridiculousness of an insomniac running a sleep clinic.  Just before six, as I was finally drifting back to sleep, Willa woke and began to call my name, “Dea!  Dea!  Deeeeeee-aaaaaa!”  
I staggered to her crib.  At the sight of me she scrabbled to pop her pacifier in her mouth and to  grab Teddy.    It was 7 a.m.  That seemed a reasonable time to wake up.  I picked her up and staggered back to my room.  She snuggled in between Paul and me and then we both passed out.
My “sleep” was punctuated by kicks in my back and dream sequences where I tried to gain an inch of space since Willa was plastered against me and I was hugging the edge of the bed.  The few times I was able to open my eyes she was lying beside me peacefully, her own sweet eyes shut.  The moment I shut my own the next assault began.
Paul, was waging his own battle.  He was too tired to take anything more than a defensive posture from Teddy who kept hitting his head every few minutes.  
We all finally awoke around nine.  Woke is really a misnomer; it would be accurate to say that our sleep finally ran out.  We both felt like death; mine was stone cold and Paul’s was slightly warmed.  Willa was fresh as a daisy, a thirsty and ravenous daisy no less.
Aunt Ali’s Sleep Clinic has closed its doors.
I’m sure this comes as no surprise.

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Paul’s Facebook has contracted a terrible virus. In his name porn is being distributed to all his “Friends”. He became aware of the problem late Friday and tried to correct it yesterday to no avail. He can’t get into his account.

Last night at Torey and David’s we told them all about it, including the first e-mail he received alerting him to the situation. A friend of all of ours, who happens to attend church with Paul and me had opened Paul’s message with her kids at the computer.

They all got an eyeful.

I’m not sure she knew what to think. It was like she wanted him to know that – in future – she would prefer to pass on the porn, as if was just another annoying (and particularly offensive) forward on Facebook. Sort of, “Some of us don’t approve of that stuff” as if Paul does! Her closing line was, “Other than that, how’s the family?”

We all started laughing at the terrible ridiculousness of Paul sending porn to all his church friends.

This morning, as we were getting ready Paul asked, “So how many people do you bet come up today at church to tell me about Facebook?”

“You hope they’re coming up to you.” I said.

He thought for a moment.

“Good point.” He said.

https://alisonhodgson.com/2009/03/310/