Missing Mama

In writing this weblog it should be fairly self-evident that I avoid talking about my wife, otherwise known as Kaia’s mama. When I started writing this, I wanted it to be entirely about Kaia and my relationship and life in India from the perspective of being his papa. Yet, it would be disingenuous to suggest that she’s not a significant part of OUR experience here and there are times when her presence—or in this case—absence makes a big difference. The last few weeks have been one of those times.

For those of you who do not know about our situation here, Kaia’s mom is the Project Director of a HIV/AIDS capacity building project that is being administered through a government hospital in Chennai. This hospital is, in fact, a tuberculosis sanatorium, but it is the largest care center in all India for the care and treatment of people have contracted the AIDS virus. Its high profile led to it being profiled in the slick, globally distributed “A Closer Walk” documentary. Hundreds of patients are seen each day, many with the same tragic stories that are repeated across the world—positive orphans whose parents have already succumbed to the virus, stigmatized women without support nor income, families and communities decimated—it is not the easiest place to go to work everyday.

As one might expect Kaia’s mom is consistently challenged on multiple fronts—emotionally and spiritually, for obvious reasons, and physically by the tremendous stress and demands of her position as the leader of this ever-growing project. From the first day that we arrived here it has been a Level 5 hurricane that just hasn’t stopped. Her capabilities to handle it all have forged an entirely new level of respect that I have for her. I don’t think that I could do what she’s doing, and certainly not as well.

But more than the daily challenges that she has experienced through work, is how the demands of her job have taken her away from the thing she cares about more than anything—her son. A typical day has her leaving the house at 7:30 and coming back around the same time in the evening. She has yet take a holiday since she started here because of the persistent demands and sometimes, but it is when she has to work on a Saturday, that things really get out of whack. You see, after some rocky adjustment, Kaia and I have tuned out internal clocks to times when mama is here and gone. When she’s away, he is fine and happy to play and be with me, Joyce and/or Sekar. Around 7:00pm, he expects that she’ll come soon and he’s happy to spend time with her when she does. Of course, initially he will often demand her full attention (I cannot talk with her) and if he doesn’t get it, many tears will flow. But when she’s not here on Saturday, it sets this terrible disruptive pattern into motion. He needs at least the weekends with her to have enough ‘mama time’ and when there is only Sunday it is insufficient and carries over into the next week. The problem as well is that she is exhausted by Sunday and cannot provide him with the full, active attention that he wants and needs. What results is a frustrated Kaia, an even more exhausted mama, and a papa in-between who can only look forward with great anticipation for when this current situation will change. The last few weekends, Saturday has been taken up and this is what we’ve been contending with.

One of the things that Kaia and mama will do together is bath time. Here's a recent photo of that…I am looking forward to the time when she has more energy to be fully present during this and other time with him. I know that this time is coming soon.

Why I Love this Time: His Indian ‘bullet train’.